Circular Sovereignty Starts with Waste: How SMX's Identity Layer Reclaims Material Value

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NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / December 8, 2025 / Industrial waste has always been treated as a cost center. The global economy generates more than 2 billion tons of industrial and post-commercial waste every year, much of which contains plastics, composites, flame-retardant compounds, or carbon-black polymers that cannot be reliably identified. Between 60% and 80% of these materials never enter recycling streams at all. They are incinerated, landfilled, or downcycled. Not because they lack value, but because they lack identity.

REDWAVE, CETI, and CARTIF each highlight how quickly that truth changes when SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) brings molecular verification into the system.

REDWAVE's sorting infrastructure serves as the industrial engine. Their systems process materials at nearly two meters per second across facilities that often handle hundreds of thousands of tons of waste per year. Historically, that speed came with structural limitations. Optical sensors cannot detect carbon-black plastics. Flame-retardant polymers confuse infrared systems. Composite materials break classification logic entirely. The result is predictable. Up to 30% of incoming material becomes unrecoverable because existing technologies cannot accurately categorize it.

Changing the Identity Narrative

When SMX identity markers enter the material stream, this barrier disappears. Early demonstrations showed accuracy levels of 99% to 100% even at full throughput. Materials once doomed to disposal suddenly become traceable inputs for circular manufacturing.

CETI's involvement in France extends the system downstream. The facility's research into composite materials and multi-layer packaging demonstrates why identity is essential. A piece of industrial packaging might contain five different polymers layered for strength, insulation, or product safety. Without verified identification, that packaging becomes waste. With molecular identity, each layer becomes recoverable feedstock.

CETI's analysis suggests that verified multi-material recovery can increase usable output by double-digit percentages, especially across Europe's dense industrial zones. Increased accuracy also stabilizes input quality for manufacturers, reducing defect rates and improving production efficiency.

CARTIF's work in Spain highlights the regulatory dimension. Governments across the EU are implementing mandatory recovery quotas for industrial materials, backed by compliance penalties that can reach millions per year. Regulators do not want reports. They want evidence. Identity-backed materials provide that evidence. A facility can confirm exact composition. A government can confirm exact recovery volumes. A manufacturer can prove circular content across all relevant inputs.

With that, the infrastructure becomes measurable. Compliance shifts from bureaucratic reporting to automated verification. That efficiency reduces compliance costs by up to 40% in early modeling scenarios.

Far-Reaching Economic Implications

The economic implications reach even further. Global industrial waste streams contain an estimated $200 billion to $250 billion in recoverable materials. Companies have attempted to access that value for decades, but without identity, recovery becomes speculative.

SMX solves that by embedding memory into the materials themselves. A recycler can certify every kilogram leaving the facility. A manufacturer can purchase feedstock with full quality assurance. A government can measure circular progress in real time instead of once per year. Industrial sovereignty strengthens because countries can retain high-value materials instead of exporting them as low-grade waste.

REDWAVE provides the industrial scale. CETI provides the scientific rigor. CARTIF provides the compliance architecture. SMX ties all three into a single circular system built on verifiable identity. This is not a marginal improvement. It is a structural redesign of how industrial materials move through an economy.

That matters. Because once identity enters the waste stream, it stops being waste. It becomes inventory.

About SMX

As global businesses face new and complex challenges relating to carbon neutrality and meeting new governmental and regional regulations and standards, SMX is able to offer players along the value chain access to its marking, tracking, measuring, and digital platform technology to transition more successfully to a low-carbon economy.

Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this press release includes "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words "anticipate," "believe," "contemplate," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intends," "may," "will," "might," "plan," "possible," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "would" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this press release may include, for example: successful launch and implementation of SMX's joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of steel, rubber, plastic and other materials; changes in SMX's strategy, future operations, financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects and plans; SMX's ability to develop and launch new products and services, including its planned Plastic Cycle Token; SMX's ability to successfully and efficiently integrate future expansion plans and opportunities; SMX's ability to grow its business in a cost-effective manner; SMX's product development timeline and estimated research and development costs; the implementation, market acceptance and success of SMX's business model; developments and projections relating to SMX's competitors and industry; and SMX's approach and goals with respect to technology. These forward-looking statements are based on information available as of the date of this press release, and current expectations, forecasts and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing views as of any subsequent date, and no obligation is undertaken to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws. As a result of a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, actual results or performance may be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the ability to maintain the listing of the Company's shares on Nasdaq; changes in applicable laws or regulations; the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and identify and realize additional opportunities; the risk of downturns and the possibility of rapid change in the highly competitive industry in which SMX operates; the risk that SMX and its current and future collaborators are unable to successfully develop and commercialize SMX's products or services, or experience significant delays in doing so; the risk that the Company may never achieve or sustain profitability; the risk that the Company will need to raise additional capital to execute its business plan, which may not be available on acceptable terms or at all; the risk that the Company experiences difficulties in managing its growth and expanding operations; the risk that third-party suppliers and manufacturers are not able to fully and timely meet their obligations; the risk that SMX is unable to secure or protect its intellectual property; the possibility that SMX may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; and other risks and uncertainties described in SMX's filings from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters) Public Limited