RECLAIM game showcased at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe

The Institute of Digital Games showcased the Recycling Data Game developed as part of the EU-funded RECLAIM project at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe, which took place in Amsterdam on April 1 and 2, 2025. The Recycling Data Game was among the three exhibitors of the AI Innovation Hub, curated by the editorial team at Sustainable Plastics. The AI Innovation Hub introduced the latest uses of AI in plastics recycling through information boards and video displays, guiding visitors through the areas of feedstock and design, collection, processing, and material sourcing.

The Recycling Data Game is developed as part of the EU-funded RECLAIM project, which created a prototype portable robotic Material Recovery Facility (prMRF). RECLAIM is deploying these prMRFs in remote areas like European islands to recover valuable recyclable waste locally. To help RECLAIM's novel prMRF, we need better algorithms for AI algorithms for better material identification, segmentation, and categorisation of objects.

To improve the AI, we developed nine mini-games that put players in the role of the AI: they must categorize, identify, or locate objects of different materials on a conveyor belt. The images we use for the game are taken from the conveyor of the fully automated prMRF, where AI must both recognize (through "normal" and hyper-spectral cameras) and pick up (through robotic arms) objects of different materials to sort into different bins. The RECLAIM Recycling Data Game was showcased at the Plastics Recycling Show Europe two months ago, and the Sustainable Plastics news piece discusses our game's and the other showcased projects' contributions to the AI Innovation Hub. The RECLAIM Recycling Data Game is free for all Android devices.