Project 2Life: Dow and BanQu Turn Waste into Profit
Results
Of the origin and conversion of PCR resin
PET bottles and caps tracked & traced
Waste pickers registered
Big Picture
As we look ahead to 2030, Latin America is on track to produce a staggering 259 million tons of municipal solid waste. In response to that challenge, Dow, a company specializing in materials science, created REVOLOOP™ worldwide, an innovative premium product made of post-consumer recycled (PCR) resin. Dow launched REVOLOOP™ as part of their commitment to responsible production and to advance the circular economy.
With REVOLOOP™ being the first PCR resin that exists in Colombia’s market, Dow sought visibility of the informal waste sector at the last mile to strengthen their quality assurance and market position while improving waste picker livelihoods. Dow partnered with BanQu to ensure transparent tracking throughout the entire REVOLOOP™ value chain, not only to contribute to their supply cost-effectively and sustainably, but also to support the empowerment of local cooperatives and strengthen Colombia's recycling ecosystem.
Problem
Unlike virgin resin production, which relies on non-renewable feedstock such as oil and natural gas, PCR resin derives its feedstock from recycled materials. Notably, Colombia's informal waste sector plays a significant role in reclaiming this waste, with waste pickers collecting an estimated 40% of recyclables from waste streams. Despite their essential contributions to the circular economy, waste pickers are typically invisible and unrecognized in the value chain. Furthermore, cooperatives buying materials from waste pickers usually rely on time-consuming, paper-based methods, leading to possibilities for errors and inefficiencies.
To ensure REVOLOOP™ could meet markets' volume and quality assurance demands without disruption, Dow sought to improve their supply of recyclables by connecting all value chain participants – including waste pickers – to a secure and transparent system. Consequently, Dow needed a traceability platform that could:
- Capture source-level transactional data and verify the provenance of recyclables.
- Identify and connect waste pickers to the REVOLOOP™ value chain.
- Provide an operating system for cooperatives to run and manage their business, including real-time inventory reports.
- Establish a secure digital ecosystem while protecting the data privacy rights of all value chain actors.
Enter BanQu
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Solution
Sowing a Better Ecuador through Traceability and Transparency
Dow joined forces with BanQu, a blockchain-based traceability platform, to sustainably optimize its recycling value chain through source-level visibility. With the commencement of their partnership in January 2023, project “2Life” was born. This pilot project aims to promote circularity by creating a transparent system for tracing the flow of recycled materials in some of the REVOLOOP™ production chain – from origin to conversion into new packaging.
Project 2Life launched with BanQu’s implementation team traveling to Colombia to connect four central cooperatives and hundreds of waste pickers to the system. BanQu’s device-agnostic platform provides a digitized book of business for cooperatives to run and manage their business. On the platform, cooperatives can effectively capture data on the volume, price, and types of recycled materials produced. By automating manual operations and transforming time-consuming, paper-based processes, cooperatives can enhance the efficiency and reliability of their business. BanQu also creates a secure digital ecosystem – with blockchain-proof data privacy – to strengthen the trust, accountability, and collaboration among supply chain actors.
With access to source-level insights, Dow can contribute to enhancing productivity by working together with waste pickers and cooperatives through swift identification and resolution of inefficiencies – thereby improving their income and elevating the formality of their operations. BanQu provides 360-degree visibility of material flows, with real-time inventory reports for Dow to make data-driven forecasting and planning decisions. This is critical to create a stable and transparent value chain for Dow to meet the volume, quality assurance, and sustainability requirements of their clients without disruption.
As Dow continually improves the position of PCR resin in the market, the demand for the product will increase, resulting in a greater supply of recyclables to promote Colombia’s circular economy. Project 2Life provides a replicable model that underscores the significance of recycling and employing post-consumer raw materials. This approach enables plastic to undergo a second life, contributing to environmental conservation.
Overall, Dow, in partnership with BanQu, has played a pivotal role in enhancing Colombia's recycling ecosystem by prioritizing high-quality and sustainable production through source-level traceability, empowering local cooperatives and recognizing their significant contribution.
Benefits
- Strengthened supply assurance and market position by optimizing the recycling value chain.
- Real-time insights into the origin of recycled materials found in Dow’s premium resin REVOLOOP™ manufactured in Colombia.
- Enhanced efficiency for meeting manufacturing demand by connecting all supply chain actors to a secure and transparent system.
- Data-driven forecasting and planning with tier-level inventory reports.
- Formalizing Colombia’s informal recycling ecosystem through complete traceability, visibility, and equitability.
For more information on Project 2Life, dive into the materials below:
BanQu offers our REVOLOOP™ brands transparency. We need to preserve the transparency to our customers and brands in the value chain, and BanQu absolutely makes a difference from that.
Sustainability Manager at Dow Colombia
María Paulina Sandoval
Our experience with BanQu has been great. They have the advantage of putting boots on the ground to really understand our needs and our recyclers' needs. So when we design a solution, that solution really answers to what we were expecting, and really delivers value to us and the whole recycling chain.
Former General Director for Andean Countries at Dow Colombia
Andrés Salgado
This project is the meeting point of blockchain innovation with sustainability. By integrating waste picker cooperatives into the recycling ecosystem, we are democratizing the path towards a circular economy, leaving no one behind in our mission for a more sustainable future.
CEO and Co-Founder of BanQu
Ashish Gadnis