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The DIN SPEC 91446 standard initiated by the Hamburg start-up cirplus, which combines aspects of digitalisation and the circular economy, wins the DIN Climate Prize, which was awarded for the first time this year, in addition to the DIN Innovation Award 2022.
For over ten years, the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN) has been awarding Special projects and outstanding commitment to standardisation out. The DIN Prize is awarded in three categories: young talent, innovation and application. For the first time, projects that promote climate protection and adaptation to climate change were also honoured in 2022.
DIN SPEC 91446, the world's first standard for high-quality plastics recycling and digitisation, was initiated by cirplus. The company networks via its digital B2B marketplace for circular plastics waste producers, recyclers and processors to make the use of recycled plastics simple, transparent and cost-efficient. The DIN SPEC 91446 defines a system for classifying recycled plastics, based on the amount of data available for the material (so-called data quality levels). It provides guidelines for the labelling of the recyclate type and the recyclate content. It is also a guideline for the characterisation of plastic waste as a source material for recycling. With this new standard for the data quality of recyclates and plastic waste raw materials, in conjunction with the digitalisation of secondary raw material flows, the Commercialisation of recycled material on a large scale possible in the first place, according to the company.
The development of DIN SPEC 91446 involved a consortium of 16 representatives from business and science The companies involved include the Institut für Kunststoff- und Kreislauftechnik Hannover (IKK), Greiner Packaging, Polifilm Extrusion, DSD (Der grüne Punkt), Remondis Recycling, Krauss Maffei, Tomra Sorting, the Süddeutsche Kunststoff-Zentrum and the VDMA and BDE associations.
DIN SPEC 91446 was officially published in November 2021 and has since been used by companies along the value chain with an interest in the use of recycled plastics and the digitalisation of material flows. The next The major aim is to transfer DIN SPEC 91446 into European and international norms and standards. Work on this has begun. In August 2022, the EU Commission had already included DIN SPEC 91446 in the canon of relevant standards for the implementation of the European plastics economic strategy.
“Winning this year's Innovation and Climate Prize for DIN SPEC 91446 is a particularly great honour for us. It's not often that start-ups achieve relevant standardisation results that are essential for an entire industry; the fact that we were able to set such a big exclamation mark here with cirplus makes me personally happy and spurs me on to further commitment. I would like to thank the entire DIN SPEC 91446 consortium, especially the consortium leader Prof. Dr Hans-Josef Endres and Dr Madina Shamsuyeva, without whose technical support the project would not have been possible.“
Christian Schiller, founder and managing director cirplus
Source: cirplus
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