Cirplus, one of Europe's largest digital procurement platforms for recycled plastics, is adding new services to its offering. The company is now offering recyclers and brand owners additional quality controls and certifications for recycled materials. Particularly in markets where recyclates have not been used much or at all, the company aims to create security in the supply chain. The overall objective of the new offerings is to make sourcing and marketing easier, more efficient and more cost effective for all participants, while achieving more homogeneous qualities of recyclates.
With the addition of this service, Cirplus is taking the next step towards becoming the first holistic, digitally enabled procurement solution for recycled plastics that can be seamlessly integrated with the plastics industry's existing software solutions. The business to business platform is now used by more than 3000 companies in the plastics and waste industries of over 100 countries, including the packaging, construction and industries.
‘With our additional offerings, we want to increase confidence in the market and improve the testing process. We offer material testing and certification to buyers and sellers to increase the stability of the supply chain when using recycled materials. Digital networking and optimisation of the testing chain, from initial material sampling to permanent production use (batch by batch), enables more reliable use of plastic recyclates across different suppliers, while reducing costs. For us, this is the living link (twinning) between the two megatrends of digital and green change,’ said Christian Schiller, founder and CEO of Cirplus.
The recycled plastics are characterised and evaluated according to DIN SPEC 91446, the standard for recycled plastics and digitisation, which was initiated and funded by Cirplus and is gaining increased market acceptance. The company works with recognised testing laboratories including UL, SKZ, Fraunhofer and the Lüdenscheid Plastics Institute. Other testing services can also be provided according to customer requirements.
‘We are convinced that optimised purchasing and sales processes can reduce transaction costs for the use of recycled plastics by at least 25%. In this way, digitalisation will make a significant contribution to reducing the cost differential between virgin materials and recyclates. The barriers to increased use of recycled plastics will be lowered and new customers and markets can be developed. This is an important step towards climate neutrality and a circular economy,’ added Christian Schiller.