The vision for BASF’s reciChain project is to take circularity into the real world by increasing traceability of recycled plastics. The company created a plastic additive that enables the traceability.

Mitchell Toomey, director of sustainability for North America at BASF, shared an example of how it could work on a laundry detergent bottle: “Once that product goes to the end of its life and goes into recycling, it can be scanned an tracked at that point in time to give the recycler some information about what it contains,” he said, noting that the tracker could show the types of resins and plastics the packaging is made of.

Toomey added that once a product is recycled, the tracker can be maintained through multiple uses. The pilot will need to be scaled to have a big impact but BASF is already working with partners across the value chain.

“We believe by showing this proof of concept and showing that such a tracking material could actually work, we could revolutionize how sorting and recycling goes,” Toomey said.

John Davies, vice president and senior analyst at GreenBiz, interviewed Mitchell Toomey, director of sustainability for North America at BASF, during Circularity 20, which took place on August 25-27, 2020. View archived videos from the conference here.