R-Cycle awarded German Sustainability Award 2021

R-Cycle has been awrded the German Sustainability Award 2021 in the Packaging category by the German Institute for Service Quality (DISQ), the German news channel ntv, and DUP UNTERNEHMER (German Entrepreneurship Platform for Digitalization and Sustainability).

Plastic packaging has become an indispensable part of our everyday lives and there is often no alternative - such as in medical technology or in the packaging of perishable foodstuffs. However, the problems associated with the growing global demand for plastic packaging cannot be overlooked and are becoming increasingly acute. Even in the Germany, only about six per cent of plastics from domestic waste are recycled, and more than 65 per cent is incinerated, according to a Conversio study of 2017.

One reason for the low recycling rate is the present difficulty to identify the different compositions of plastic packaging in the recycling process. Sorting is considerably improved when a digital product passport is affixed to plastic packaging to display this information. R-Cycle is such a digital product passport based on an open standard that automatically registers all recycling-related properties during packaging production and passes this information along the value chain. Waste sorting plants can then identify recyclable packaging and form recyclable fractions.

Dr Benedikt Brenken, Director of the R-Cycle Initiative, said: "Digitalisation and sustainability are two megatrends that we have integrated beneficially in R-Cycle. The use of a digital product passport, as also required by the European Union, offers enormous potential to increase the recycling rate of plastic packaging."

R-Cycle is under development to market maturity by leading companies and organisations along the entire plastic-packaging lifecycle. Besides improving product sustainability, manufacturers can increase their process efficiency and product quality by using a digital product passport. Detailed information about the raw materials used speeds up production and registering the product properties adds value for customers in downstream processes.

The R-Cycle Project is a collaborative venture involving some of Germany’s best-known plastics machinery manufacturers, including Reifenhäuser, Arburg, Kautex Maschinenbau and Brückner Maschinenbau, as well as other European players such as EREMA and Steinert.