Japanese polystyrene producer Dainippon Ink and Chemicals (DIC, Tokyo; www.dic-global.com) has partnered with German software technology company SAP (Walldorf; www.sap.com) for a pilot project to use blockchain technology in the construction of a waste plastics traceability system. DIC is looking to promote efforts to achieve greater circularity in the market for PS food packaging in particular.

The pilot project will use SAP’s GreenToken private blockchain technology to track raw materials from the point of generation to make the entire supply chain transparent to all parties throughout the life cycle of the material.

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The system is designed to help customers understand how much recovered material is actually contained in the recycled plastics they use with an asset issued by the blockchain technology called a token. A token corresponds to a specific volume of raw materials or products and provides the means to track recycled plastics, even when they are mixed with other raw materials and processed into new products.

SAP’s GreenToken is a database technology involving a continuously growing list of linked transaction records called blocks that is accessible to all parties and cannot be modified retroactively, thus being effective for traceability. The partnership also uses SAP’s Digital Twin technology that makes it possible to record information, including unique raw material attributes related to the origin, carbon footprint, and source of collected PS containers, besides their sustainability certification data.