Digital marketplace for recyclates: cirplus networks entire value chain

Sometimes you have to see a problem with your own eyes – or feel it with your own feet – to want to do something about it. At least that's how it was for Christian Schiller, who launched cirplus, a digital marketplace for recyclates.

In an interview with K-MAG, he talks about the moment when he realized that he wanted to actively combat plastic pollution and how he is doing his part with cirplus.

Mr. Schiller, how did you come to found cirplus?

How did you come up with the idea of a digital marketplace for recyclates?

Christian Schiller: It all started with a trip around the world in 2017. After setting up the German offshoot of the ride-sharing community BlaBlaCar, I treated myself to some time out on the water. On the way from Colombia to Panama, I was dangling my legs in the water when suddenly something touched me and I realized we were driving through a carpet of plastic. It was a nightmare. How can it be that this material, worth trillions when we extract it from the earth's crust as petroleum, later ends up as trash in the ocean? Something can't be right.

Back in Germany, I did some in-depth research with my partner Volkan Bilici, a software developer with experience in the plastics industry. It turned out how much plastic waste ends up in thermal recycling - in other words, in the waste incineration plant – even in collection-conscious Germany.

To what extent do you contribute to climate protection with cirplus?

Schiller: cirplus is a kind of digital wholesale market for recycled plastics. The first step is to network waste disposers and recycling companies that produce recycled plastic from the waste. Processors can obtain this via the platform as raw material for new products, such as shampoo bottles. These packaging manufacturers supply brand-name manufacturers with bottles made from recycled plastic. That way, plastic ends up on the shelf and not in the ocean or incinerated. It also saves millions of tons of the valuable resource petroleum and doesn't contribute to the world's CO2 pollution.

What role does digitalization play in this?

Schiller: Of course, digitalization and AI also play a crucial role at cirplus. We are digitizing the procurement process. Costs can be saved at every stage of the value chain: cirplus helps to find new suppliers or customers, offers integrated material testing, and optimizes logistics right through to payment processing and complaints management.

On the other hand, cirplus increases transparency and security of supply. Thanks to worldwide networking, comparability and the ability to conclude contracts, every plastics processor can see from which material stream a supplier has produced a recyclate. The platform thus anticipates regulatory dynamics and already integrates the idea of digital product passports, as recently demanded by the European Parliament.

You have initiated a standard for recycled plastics at the German Institute for Standardization (DIN). What is that all about?

Schiller: With the so-called DIN SPEC 91446, both buyers and sellers can be provided with standards for high-quality plastic applications in the future. This has not existed before. The next step now is to establish these standards in the market and ensure that recycled material is tested regularly. By bringing standards and transparency to demand and to offers, we are virtually a digital catalyst in the entire recycling process.

How do you think the plastics industry needs to develop in the future?

Schiller: In the future, a path must be found in which bioplastics lead away from plastic production from fossil sources. By then, plastic that has been used as packaging, for example, can be recycled up to ten times before it ends up in an incineration plant. That's the only way plastic will have a sustainable future. I mean, we fly to Mars and can't manage to run plastic in circles. That's absurd, and for me it's also a failure on the part of policymakers.