Cirplus, Europe's largest digital procurement platform for recycled plastics, is adding new services to its platform offering. The Hamburg-based 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, Cirplus aims to create security in the supply chain. The overall objective of Cirplus' new offerings is to make sourcing and marketing easier, more efficient and more cost-effective for all market 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 B2B platform is now used by more than 3,000 companies in the plastics and waste industries of over 100 countries, including the packaging, household goods, construction, automotive, cosmetics, food packaging and pharmaceutical 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," says Christian Schiller, founder and CEO of Cirplus.
The recycled plastics are characterised and evaluated according to DIN SPEC 91446, the world's first 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 percent. 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," says Schiller.
Cirplus will be present at FAKUMA 2023 (Foyer West, Stand 20) from October 17–21 in Friedrichshafen. Interested parties can get detailed information about the platform and other service additions from Cirplus on site.