A1-01 Development of Plastic Networking for Environmental Transformation Japan for circular economy
Principal Investigator
MUSA Akihiro (NEC Corporation)
Research and Development Overview
This study aims to establish the Plastic Networking for Environmental Transformation Japan (PLA-NETJ) that manages and visualizes the recycling processes of recycled plastic. PLA-NETJ is designed to enable visualization and traceability of recycled plastics across companies by linking data throughout the lifecycle—from the origin of recycled materials to their final use.
- Interim Objective
With the cooperation of companies participating in this SIP project, the PLA-NETJ Minimum Viable Product (MVP) will be used to demonstrate the traceability of recycled plastics.
In addition, studies will be conducted on collaboration and interoperability with domestic and international data spaces. - Final Objective
The PLA-NETJ Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) will be developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of traceability across both upstream (production) and downstream (recycling) processes. Furthermore, it will demonstrate that the system can be applied not only to plastics but also to other industries.
Progress and Achievements
The development of the PLA-NETJ MVP, which has been designed and implemented since FY2023, has been completed, and development of the PLA-NETJ MMP has commenced.
The MMP adopts a decentralized data management architecture and features a hybrid configuration combining centralized and decentralized approaches. This enables flexible utilization in accordance with the security requirements of each participating organization.
Furthermore, In FY2025, demonstration experiments were conducted continuously from FY2024 with the participation of 19 companies, including recyclers, compounders, and Tier 1 suppliers. These experiments confirmed that recycled materials can be traced across companies.