Sustainability

Project reciChain - British Columbia Pilot Program

Positioning Canada as a leader in plastics circularity through the reciChain^TM program

According to the Government of Canada, every year, Canadians throw away three million tonnes of plastic waste, less than 10 percent of which is recycled. This means that the vast majority of plastic waste produced in Canada ends up in landfills or enters the environment as pollution where it poses a risk to wildlife and their habitat.

To address these challenges, BASF Canada has launched the reciChain^TM program, a technology-enabled ecosystem that brings together all the plastic value chain players to enable circularity, tracking and sorting of recycled plastic.

The reciChain concept was created by BASF in Sao Paolo, Brazil and tested with an initial proof-of-concept pilot in 2020 in British Columbia, Canada, that successfully demonstrated circularity by tracking the products lifecycle from pellet to pellet.

Click here to learn more about the BC Pilot

With the support of Alberta Innovates, provincial government corporation responsible for promoting innovation in the province, reciChain is now expanding to Alberta to conduct a subsequent phase of the project which will scale the solution to a semi-commercial phase.

Click here to learn more about the Alberta Innovates funding

overview of plastic bottles with white top

Setting up a stakeholder value chain and consortium to incentivize the recycling and reuse of plastics into a local circular economy.

Designing a scalable blockchain solution (reciChain) to support the track & trace, and monetization of plastics within the value chain, through innovative Digital Badge and Loop Count technology.

Expanding on a current pilot in Brazil run by BASF, to operate in British Columbia; leveraging regional knowledge and expertise to define a platform that supports all stakeholders.

reciChain Pilot Consortium Members

Relevant players from the plastics value chain, including BASF, Cascades, Layfield, London Drugs, NOVA Chemicals, Orion Plastics, [Re] Waste, and Waste & Recycling Services from the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, have joined forces in the next phase of reciChain

Click the link below to learn more about reciChain:
reciChain Project Overview

Revitalizing the Value of Plastics and Improving Circularity within the Supply Chain

A successful implementation of reciChain will support Alberta in achieving impacts such as:

Reducing overall contamination levels and increasing recyclability of materials

Increasing demand for innovative solutions for plastics recyclability

Supporting auditability of recycled content and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs

Shifting consumer perspectives on the use of virgin plastics and educating consumers

Supporting further brand loyalty for provincial businesses

BC Plastics Circular Economy

reciChain’s underlining technology components

To extend the lifecycle of plastics, reciChain comprises two technology components:

A physical tracer that identifies and follows key plastic features throughout the value chain and enables the connection of plastic to a digital twin
A blockchain marketplace developed by the California-based, Web3 start-up Real Items, which creates and translates the digital twin, providing a secure, auditable transfer-of-ownership and assigning incentives to incent participation and offset cost

The reciChain Pilot

PHYSICAL MOVEMENT

The reciChain pilot successfully moved two products through the complete value chain, from virgin resin through to recycle pellets

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PHYSICAL TO DIGITAL TWIN

The physical marker allowed the team to trace each product through the value chain. The marker stores key information, including: manufacture, plastics type, loop count and percentage of recycled content to enable the creation of the products digital twin.

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BLOCKCHAIN

The blockchain platform enabled the translation of tracer information from the digital twin to the user interface. Providing a secure, auditable transfer-of-ownership of the product between stakeholders.

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Where are we today?

reciChain

The reciChain project began in 2019 at an ideathon in Brazil, when BASF together with its partners, designed a solution to fight waste certificate fraud in Sao Paulo.

reciChain Canada - Phase 1 (Jan – Mar 2020)

BASF then looked to expand the use case to Canada in order to test and prove the broader vision of circularity in a new market.

BASF engaged Deloitte to act as a strategic partner to provide project governance and work with the local stakeholders in the plastics value chain.

BASF also engaged Security Matters, as the core solution provider for both the physical marker technology and blockchain development.

reciChain Canada – Phase 2 (Mar – Nov 2020)

BASF, Deloitte, and Security Matters looked to pilot two plastic product loops to prove out feasibility and enable a circular plastics economy in Vancouver B.C.

The reciChain team defined the plastic value chain comprised of 8 key stakeholders, to form a consortium. This collaborative ecosystem would enable the team to develop product loops, in which two separate plastic product packages would be embedded with a physical marker.

The project culminated in a 3 week pilot whereby the consortium successfully proved that plastics circularity, and the ability to track and trace plastics through the value chain was feasible.

Why Expanding to Alberta?

Emerging EPR stage
Government's innovation priorities and incentives
Developed petrochemical industry
Local footprint of major players in the plastic and resin manufacturers

Pilot results and lessons learned

Pilot results

The reciChain project pushed innovative boundaries through its approach to circular economy, the physical marker, and blockchain. The pilot successfully proved out:

•The interest in circular economy models and buy-in of 8 stakeholders representing the complete plastics value chain.

•The feasibility of the marker to be embedded into two different types of plastic product packaging.

•The ability for the marker to be successfully read at all stages of the value chain, including mechanical sorting and extrusion to pellets.

•The blockchain platform allowed the transfer-of-ownership, the ability to store a digital-twin record at all stages of the value chain, and the ability to integrate external technology inputs.

Key challenges and opportunities

Throughout the pilot the project team faced a number of challenges and decisions that shaped the design of the pilot.

•It was critical that both products be recyclable. Although mono-material multi-layer packaging would not be put into the blue box in B.C. it is fundamentally a recyclable product, presenting a new solution to the complexity of multi-layer material recyclability.

•In the current value chain weight or quantity is used to track packaging by each stakeholder. However, to support the overall material flow of the platform weight was used as the primary tracking metric throughout the entire value chain, and converted to quantity as necessary.

Next steps

Each stakeholder expressed interest in their continued involvement in the consortium. The next steps for the reciChain platform will look to:

•Demonstrate industrial scaling of the marker reader at the recyclers;

•Incorporate larger scale brand names into the pilot, specifically a non-consumer facing brand;

•Support design requirements and regulations for the marker in consumer packaging; and,

•Develop use cases to demonstrate the value of blockchain and user interface solution.

Hear what our stakeholders had to say

Plastics have proven benefits for multiple applications. Plastic waste, however, poses a major global challenge. To solve this environmental issue, we need to build a more circular economy for plastics through innovation and collaboration across the value chain. This is exactly what reciChain brings to the industry.

BASF Canada

Creating a cleaner world starts at the local level, in communities all around the country and right here in Alberta. Innovative programs like reciChain are creating meaningful changes in plastic recycling. Alberta Innovates is pleased to support this partnership and looks forward to the results that flow from this program.

Alberta Innovates

We are excited to be early evaluators of the technology, and be at the forefront of development. The pilot has created interest across a number of our customer, in regards to our involvement and the technology.

NOVA Chemicals

This pilot has been a galvanizing force for our internal sustainability discussions and across different teams, the project has shown that something like this is possible. For us, the traceability factor is very exciting. To be able to build a story around a private label program that can trace the amount of product that is being recycled in very valuable looking into the future.

London Drugs

The ability for the tracer to survive recycling, and possibility for auditability of product are key features.

Layfield Plastics

The future vision for the reciChain Canada program

The program has set a long term vision that will enable plastics circularity through a self-sustaining ecosystem.

hammer and wrench cross icon with grey background and bottom text Mar 2020 to Nov 2020

PHASE II - Pilot Design & Delivery

BASF and Deloitte worked closely with ecosystem stakeholders to pilot plastics circularity in B.C

The team will focus on two key objectives for the BC Pilot:

1. Track the physical movement of different plastic types (rigid & flexible plastics) to prove out circularity using tracer technology; and

2. Enable traceability through the blockchain solution defined through digital handshakes & data records.

Media

News Releases

The reciChain^TM program expands to Alberta with the goal to position the province as a leader in plastics circularity BASF introduces innovative pilot blockchain project to improve circular economy and traceability of recycled plastics Major companies and retailers join BASF’s reciChain pilot to improve circular economy and traceability of recycled plastics in Canada

Once the reciChain program is validated in Alberta’s plastics value chain, BASF intends to continue expanding it to tackle the plastic waste challenge, both at national and global levels.

If you have any questions about this project or if you would like to learn more on how to join the consortium in Alberta please contact:
lorena.lujan-rubio@basf.com

reciChain is a trademark of BASF, used with permission by BASF Canada Inc. (c) 2022 BASF Canada Inc. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners and use of any such trademark does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by its owner.