Smart waste management : AI-powered intelligence platform transforms waste industry's access to packaging data

The waste management industry is experiencing a technological breakthrough that promises to revolutionise how packaging recyclability is understood and optimised. Greyparrot's newly launched Deepnest platform represents the world's first AI-powered waste intelligence system designed specifically to bridge the critical information gap between brand owners and waste facility operators.

For the past five years, Greyparrot's Analyzer camera systems have been deployed in waste facilities across more than 20 countries. The scale of data collection is staggering: in 2024 alone, these AI-powered systems detected over 40 billion waste objects, creating an unparalleled real-world database of what actually gets sorted, recycled, or lost in the waste stream.

This massive data collection effort has revealed a fundamental truth that waste managers have long understood but struggled to communicate upstream: theoretical recyclability often doesn't translate to practical recovery outcomes.

"Too often, packaging that's theoretically recyclable never makes it through the system as intended. Either it can't be correctly identified by the sorting machines, or it's made from materials with no viable end market," said Gaspard Duthilleul, COO at Greyparrot. "That's why we built Deepnest, not just for brands, but to take a systemic approach that supports the entire value chain. Waste managers need packaging to be designed for recovery, and brands need to understand what works and what doesn't in real-world conditions, and at scale. Deepnest helps close that loop."

Currently, less than 1% of waste undergoes manual auditing, leaving the industry operating with limited visibility into actual material flows and recovery rates. Deepnest addresses this challenge by transforming large-scale waste analytics into actionable intelligence for brands and packaging producers.

The platform enables brands to benchmark packaging recycling performance against competitors, test packaging formats before full-scale deployment, identify design elements that reduce recyclability in priority markets, and quantify the impact of sustainability initiatives

For waste management companies, Deepnest represents a significant advancement in industry collaboration. By providing upstream stakeholders with aggregated, global waste analytics, the platform enables meaningful improvements that boost material recovery, reduce contamination, and enhance sorting efficiency and profitability.

Amy Hooper, Head of Innovation at Biffa, emphasized the collaborative potential: "Improving valuable material recovery outcomes requires a collective effort across the entire value chain. We're always looking for ways to strengthen the connection between what happens in our facilities and the decisions being made upstream. Collaborating with Greyparrot on the introduction of Deepnest in our facilities, allows our sector to support the surfacing of new layers of insight for the broader value chain into material recovery - insight that has the potential to inform more effective packaging and product design, policy, and investment. Initiatives like this

Major global brands including Unilever, Asahi, and Amcor are currently trialing Deepnest to inform smarter packaging design decisions and better respond to emerging regulations such as virgin plastic taxes and extended producer responsibility schemes.

Mark Roberts, Circular Economy Director at Amcor, highlighted the platform's unique value proposition: "The packaging industry relies on lab-scale testing and software models to predict recyclability of packaging solutions, but actual real-life data is missing, given the huge resources it would take to get real waste data at scale from operating facilities. With Greyparrot's AI-powered waste intelligence, Deepnest is unlocking real-world recyclability data that the packaging data chain has been missing."

Sandra Gibbs, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Asahi Beverages, described their operational experience: "Asahi Beverages has made big strides in sustainable packaging, including switching to 100% recycled plastic bottles for brands like Pepsi Max, Solo, Schweppes, and Sunkist. We also operate Australia's largest PET recycling facility—a joint venture with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners—and we've been looking for real-time data to help maximise its impact. That's why we installed Greyparrot Analyzers to unlock operational data to improve recycling quality and output. Deepnest can transform that data into insights to guide smarter packaging design from the outset. We're exploring how this technology can help us embed a data-driven approach across the entire packaging lifecycle, moving us closer to 100% circular packaging."

Dr Liz Smith, Global R&D Head of Deodorants at Unilever, emphasized the potential for systemic change: "AI-enabled waste intelligence tools have great potential to provide new visibility into how packaging is actually being sorted and processed in real-world recycling systems. Our goal is to reduce our virgin plastic use and make our plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable - and insights like these could critically help to inform future packaging design, enable recyclability in practice and at scale, and increase the supply of high-quality recycled materials."

The launch of Deepnest represents a significant development for the waste management industry, creating new collaboration opportunities between facility operators and packaging designers while providing real-world intelligence that could support improvements in material recovery outcomes.