The transition to a circular economy stands or falls with reliable, applicable information about materials. This week marks the official kick-off of the Reïnkarneer project: a European Union-subsidised collaboration (JTF) that focuses on developing a common language for recycled content. The project starts with plastics, but explicitly looks beyond that.
Recycled materials are playing an increasingly important role in industry, but their use is lagging behind ambitions. This is not due to a lack of motivation, but to a structural problem: insufficiently clear information.
Companies face a variety of challenges:
Without a common understanding about characterisation and naming for recycled content, reuse remains complex, risky and often economically unviable to scale.
Reïnkarneer aims to make recycled content easier, more reliable and more competitively applicable. We do this by working on:
These product passports serve as a dynamic information carrier in which the properties, origin and possible applications of the material are recorded transparently.
Although the project starts with recycled plastics, its ambition is broader. Reïnkarneer focuses on volume growth of recycled content in:
By creating one recognisable system, the conditions arise to scale recycled content across industries. This makes it much easier for producers, recyclers and designers to apply recycled materials more often and in larger volumes.
Reïnkarneer will run from 2025 to 2027. During these two years, we will combine different approaches:
It is precisely this practical approach that is crucial. By working with recognisable examples, companies and knowledge institutions can not only understand what the new language is, but also immediately see how they can apply it in their own processes.
Reïnkarneer is a collaborative project in which the business community, knowledge institutes and government bodies reinforce each other. The official kick-off took place this week together with Stimulus, marking the formal launch of the project.
De upcoming period we will be sharing updates on:
That is how we build a broadly accepted system that contributes to the transition to a circular economy.
The development of a common language for recycled content is not a theoretical exercise, but a crucial step towards large-scale reuse. Through transparency, standardisation and collaboration, recycled content can fulfil its potential.
Keep an eye on our channels and don’t miss a single update. Would you like to actively participate in workshops or webinars? Then we warmly invite you to become part of Reïnkarneer.