Technological watch

EuPC, the European Plastics Converters Association, partnered with the Circularise Plastics Group, currently composed of its members Covestro, Domo Chemicals and Circularise, to cooperate in the development of the tool to monitor the use of recycled plastics by converters in Europe.
Increased Use of Recycled Content
In the context of the EU Plastics Strategy, the European Commission has launched a pledge to increase the to 10 million tons by 2025. To address this, Circularise Plastics Group launched an “Open Standard for Sustainability and Transparency” based on blockchain technology & Zero-knowledge Proofs. While EuPC set up a tool to collect the use of recyclates by converters, against their production.
The tool is called MORE, Monitoring Recyclates for Europe. MORE is meant to ensure that faithful and consistent collection, through a common approach, on the use of recyclates is achieved by converters that will feed the surveys contained in MORE. The volumes reported in MORE are steadily growing every month and new plastic converting companies will join the system in the years to come.
“With the development of the MORE platform, EuPC emphasized the importance of creating an efficient infrastructure for monitoring the flow of data about the use of recycled plastics. We are happy to support its development with our technology and are looking forward to this collaboration”, says Jordi de Vos, Circularise’s co-founder.
Enabling Transparency of Material Flows
The EuPC strategy aligns with the Circularise’s mission to enable transparency of material flows while safeguarding data privacy and confidentiality. As a part of the broader objective of this collaboration, Signatories specifically aim to facilitate the development of a digital platform to monitor the rate of plastics recycling activities in Europe and test how the “Open Standard for Sustainability and Transparency” can be applied for this.
“With the rise of new technologies, such as blockchain, we look to incorporate them in our monitoring system to ensure that the MORE platform is future-proof. Circularise has the technology and vision that aligns with ours and we look forward to cooperating on the development of the recyclates monitoring system”, says EuPC managing director Alexandre Dangis.
Standard to Trace Recycled Material
The organizations behind this cooperation acknowledge that it is an important element of a broader scope to create a standard for the industry: A secure, open-source, shared data exchange system for the global value chains to enable traceability of materials throughout the lifecycle across all stakeholders and value-chains.
“Increased recycling starts with the correct monitoring and reporting practices. We believe that the Open Standard for Sustainability and Transparency can enable that and help the plastics industry transition towards a more circular economy”, says Thomas Nuyts, director of global product management at Domo Chemicals.
“The collaboration between Circularise Plastics group and EuPC has the potential to provide a remote yet detailed monitoring and audit opportunity for companies. The system could enable a more trustworthy and less expensive way to become and remain qualified, while providing the necessary speed and flexibility”, says Dr. Burkhard Zimmermann, Head of Resin, Digital Transformation & Sustainability, Covestro Polycarbonates.
EuPC, Circularise, Covestro and Domo Chemicals aim to bring together stakeholders that can contribute to the development of the MORE and Circularise platforms. In the context of this cooperation they aim to test a prototype with a list of target companies in the coming months.