Empowering Circular Operations in the Automotive Plastics Value Chain

The overall objective of the EcoPlast project is to develop comprehensive digital solutions to enhance circularity in the automotive plastic value chain. These solutions will help ensure high quality, non-toxicity and durability of secondary materials. Share of secondary materials will be increased in new products. Recovery, recycling and upcycling rates will be increased and uptake of secondary materials for high value applications will be proliferated. We will develop EcoPlast platform which will consist of secured and privacy protected collaborative space, ecoDesign tool assisting circular product design, LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) tool for increasing sustainability, CI (Circularity Index) calculator for measuring circularity, Digital Twins (DTs) for process optimisation for extrusion and injection moulding processes as well as upcycling and recycling processes. AI and robotics will be integrated for End-of-life Vehicle (ELV) management processes consisting detection, sorting, and dismantling. Blockchain based Digital Product Passport (DPP) will be employed for automotive plastic products’ traceability to increase trust among the value chain partners. DPP will also help achieving 100% sorting efficiency. A circular marketplace in the platform will help trading recycled and upcycled products. This will also help in reuse, repair, refurbish and remanufacture of dismantled automotive plastic parts. All these activities will help create new value chains around the automotive plastic sector.Automotive plastic parts will be manufactured in this project using recycled plastics, bio-composites and biobased plastics and will be demonstrated, tested, and validated along with the developed digital technologies in large-scale facilities. Novel recycling and upcycling technologies will also be demonstrated. Wider adaptation of EcoPlast solution will help address almost all the challenges automotive plastic value chain actors are currently facing.