Blockchain Tech Tracks Plastic Recycling

Chemical giant BASF expanded a 2-year-old Canadian plastic recycling pilot from British Columbia to Alberta on June 1, bringing Edmonton and Calgary into “reciChain,” a blockchain-based project to help recyclers properly sort plastics, which can only be recycled with e.g. . Products.

The move marks the latest step in a growing industry trend where large manufacturing companies are looking to blockchain technology to track and document recycling programs and get a handle on the ever-growing pile of recycled plastic.

For example, Fujitsu launched a project in July targeting fiber-reinforced polymers used in aircraft and electric vehicles with Tokyo-based Teijin. That same month, PepsiCo announced a series of six sustainability projects in Europe, including one with Security Matters to track and verify recycling claims. Netherlands-based Circularise is working on pilots with Mitsubishi and Porsche, enabling them to track used plastic and prove they have met sustainability targets.

While helping companies track and verify the plastic waste they produce – which has a distinct marketing component – is part of these programs, they have a distinctly more useful component. Using various tracking markers inserted into the products at the production stage and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, individual goods can be tracked on an immutable blockchain, much in the same way that companies such as Walmart, Nestlé and Dole track products from farms. to the table.

See also: What is a permissioned blockchain and how does centralized decentralization work?

Beyond Green Credentials

In plastics, it can play a much more important role. Different plastic resins cannot be recycled together if they are to be melted down and turned into new things, which is the end game of most recycling programs: to make it economically viable as best as possible to do more than reduce and reuse.

BASF’s reciChain began with a successful pilot in Brazil before moving to Canada, where authorities say only 9% of plastic is recycled. But by tracking each item – say a soda bottle – the tracking tools can be used when plastics are sorted at the recycling facility to ensure they are sorted accurately, as some types of plastic are very difficult if not effectively impossible to recycle. That sorting is one of the most difficult parts of plastic recycling.

Both reciChain and PepsiCo use a blockchain-powered recycling transporter Security Matters developed in July 2021, with the aim of allowing the industry to create what it refers to as “closed loops” where plastics are completely recycled multiple times. By using chemical markers that can be placed when the new plastic is manufactured, as well as at recycling and sorting facilities, the company can identify not only the type of polymer for sorting, it can identify the number of times a polymer has been recycled. percentage of recycled content, and the name of the brand owner, according to an announcement.

ReciChain’s process has two parts. The tracers can trace the plastic’s life cycle “from pellet to pellet” in the production-recycling-production process, and a blockchain-based marketplace that BASF said provides “a secure, controllable transfer of ownership” as well as linking with incentives for participants.

As for Circularise, the company noted that there is more to plastic tracking than just sustainability. It enables companies to verify that the plastic items they receive – such as car parts – are accurately identified and correct for the part in question.

“We need to know more details about the parts and materials used in our products,” said Porsche innovation research project manager Antoon Versteeg. “That means information about manufacturing processes deep in the supply chain, recycled content declarations and more. …[We] was able to trace – for a number of specific cases – plastic from raw material production to the final car.”

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