The Reifenhäuser group (Troisdorf / Germany; www.reifenhauser.com) is participating in a new recycling project together with compatriots Arburg (Lossburg; www.arburg.com), Brückner Maschinenbau (Siegsdorf; www.brueckner.com), Kautex Maschinenbau (Bonn; www.kautex-group.com) and the Institute for Plastics Processing at RWTH Aachen University (IKV, Aachen; www.ikv-aachen.de). The aim of the “R-Cycle” project is to identify recyclable waste with more precision during the recycling process so that it can be used more efficiently in the manufacturing of plastic products. The project was officially started up at the Reifenhäuser headquarters in June 2020.

R-Cycle stores recycling-related data that can be retrieved during the recycling process from a database. The data is collected during the production, conversion and filling of packaging such as yoghurt cups and shampoo bottles. R-Cycle then uses an identification mark developed by GS1 Germany (Cologne; www.gs1-germany.de) to link the data to the respective packaging. “This way, plastics can be reused in high-quality cradle-to-cradle applications such as hollow articles. This approach is innovative and sustainable, as required by the EU through its EU circular economy action plan and on a [German] national level by the new packaging law,” said Thomas Hartkämper, CEO of Kautex Maschinenbau.

GS1 Germany is supporting the project by providing its “Electronic Product Code Information Services” (Epcis) standard. GS1 Germany CEO Thomas Fell emphasised that “recycling plastics in relevant amounts only works if facilities are able to reliably differentiate between recyclable and non-recyclable.”

The R-Cycle project will use tried and tested marking and tracing technologies that are, for example, already used by the food industry to add digital information to physical products along the delivery chain. Several pilot projects are running with partners – among these are global raw materials suppliers, trading companies, global brands and independent institutions. R-Cycle will be available to all companies in the plastic packaging industry as an open system.

“The GS1 standards are the basis for the traceability of plastics as well as spreading solutions in a circular economy on a global scale,” said Bernd Reifenhäuser, CEO of the Reifenhäuser group. He added, “In order to develop and establish the common standard, the plastic packaging industry must cooperate on a cross-company basis.”