I dont think there is a perfect solution, be it heavy machinery or human sorting at the waste depot, or human sorting at the home, but a KISS approach tends to

I dont think there is a perfect solution, be it heavy machinery or human sorting at the waste depot, or human sorting at the home, but a KISS approach tends to help. Barcode backgrounds. Red for waste Green for recycle. Different background patterns to represent the different elements of packaging which can be recycled. Bottle with no outer wrapper. Two elements, top half of barcode background represents bottle top. Bottom half represents the bottle. ---------------- | RED | ---------------- | GREEN | ---------------- Bottle with an outer wrapper. -------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | BOTTLE TOP | | | -------------- | | | BOTTLE | | | -------------- | | WRAPPER | --------------------- Plastic trays ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | | | | | TRAY | | | | | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Tray with food sauces contain in plastic ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | TRAY | | | | ------- | | | | |SAUCE| | | | | ------- | | | | TRAY | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Glossy Magazines ---------------------- | COVER | | ------------- | | | | | | | INNARDS | | | | | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Bottle no plastic label plastic wrapped Multi packs ---------------------- | WRAPPER | | ------------- | | | TOP | | | | ------- | | | | BOTTLE | | | ------------- | | | ---------------------- Bottle with plastic label plastic wrapped Multi packs --------------------------- | WRAPPER | | ----------------- | | | LABEL | | | | ---------| | | | | | TOP | | | | | ---------- | | | | | BOTTLE | | | | | ---------- | | | | LABEL | | | ----------------- | | WRAPPER | -------------------------- Basically the principle of working from the out in and where there are joins like bottle tops they get split in half. Dont know if the Red and Green would affect barcodes and colour blind people much though. Or a phone app where every barcode scanned shows what can and cant be recycled on the product, maybe organised through a trade body of sorts. I think the barcode background is wasted though. Edit. The ascii art hasnt come out well on here but hopefully the gist can be understood.