Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi High-Tech Corporation have recently begun operating the “Recycled Material Marketplace,” a platform designed to support the use of recycled plastics and other recycled materials. The launch was announced on September 17, and alongside it, the two companies and MUFG Bank, Ltd. are advancing a collaboration to provide financial support for the fundraising of seller companies participating in the platform.
The Recycled Material Marketplace is a service developed by Hitachi, Ltd. and provided by Hitachi High-Tech that consolidates information on recycled plastics and on waste materials treated as valuable resources. It connects companies seeking materials with companies wishing to supply them, drawing on Hitachi High-Tech’s expertise in materials and its trading functions to provide integrated support from matching through to transaction completion. Buyer companies can search for recycled plastics based on intended use and physical property requirements, as well as search for waste materials usable as valuable resources. By listing information such as material properties, seller companies can introduce their materials to companies they might otherwise have had difficulty reaching on their own, helping to open up new business partners and applications.
The platform also supports quality verification. By linking with Hitachi High-Tech’s contracted analysis services, which utilize its measurement and analysis technologies, the platform enables chemical substance analysis and evaluation of material properties, allowing buyer companies to confirm quality before adopting a material.
For material development support, the platform uses materials informatics (MI), which combines materials data with AI to predict material properties. An AI developed in-house by Hitachi, Ltd. draws on the two companies’ experimental databases to search for combinations of recycled material, virgin material, and additives that meet target performance requirements, and proposes compounding recipes. This can be used even by companies that do not have sufficient data on recycled plastics of their own, and is useful not only for replacing existing materials but also for developing new materials tailored to specific applications.
On the financial side, the two companies and MUFG Bank signed a basic agreement in October 2025 and have been examining ways to provide financial functions to companies participating in the platform. As part of supply chain finance, MUFG Bank will progressively begin offering early cash conversion, without screening and on a non-recourse basis, for accounts receivable arising from recycled material transactions concluded on the platform, targeting seller companies such as recyclers. The aim is to support the fundraising of seller companies, thereby expanding and promoting the use of recycled materials.
The background to the companies’ launch of the platform lies in challenges surrounding the use of recycled materials. Because recycled materials vary in quality and supply volume, buyer companies have difficulty finding materials that match their intended use and performance requirements, while seller companies struggle to develop sales channels. The two companies also pointed out that evaluating material characteristics, confirming quality, and designing materials suited to specific applications all require specialized expertise, which poses limits for companies trying to handle these tasks on their own.
The two companies have been verifying use cases and functions for the platform together with Sekisui Chemical Co., Ltd., which brings the perspective of a company that uses recycled materials. From November 2025, they conducted a demonstration of MI-based compounding proposals together with Toei Co., Ltd., a recycler that handles everything from shredding and sorting to washing and pelletizing. Using polypropylene collected by Toei through its home appliance recycling business, Hitachi High-Tech’s analysis technology was used to quantify variations in molding quality and physical properties, after which the compounding recipe proposed by the MI system was verified. As a result, the companies succeeded in producing prototype recycled plastic materials that met the performance required by user companies, confirming that the entire process—from quality evaluation to material development—can be achieved on the platform. Some of the recycled materials are already being adopted in products made by the Hitachi Group.
On September 24, Hitachi, Ltd. also announced that, as part of the Cabinet Office’s Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) Phase 3 theme “Building a Circular Economy System,” it will work on research and development of AI technology for evaluating the quality and diagnosing the degradation of recycled plastics. Using in-line sensor data from production lines and material analysis data, the project aims to develop technology to assess quality variations within a lot—something that is difficult to detect through sampling inspections alone—as well as the degradation state of recycled materials.
Going forward, Hitachi, Ltd. and Hitachi High-Tech plan to expand the range of recycled materials handled on the platform and to build an ecosystem involving a diverse range of participating companies, centered on the Recycled Material Marketplace.
※The main image is taken from Hitachi High-Tech’s Recycled Material Marketplace introduction page, and the image in the body text is taken from the press release.
【Press release】Hitachi launches “Recycled Material Marketplace” operations from October 1, supporting the promotion of recycled material use through financial collaboration with MUFG Bank (Hitachi, Ltd.)
【Reference】Recycled Material Marketplace (Hitachi High-Tech)
【Related article】Hitachi and Sekisui Chemical complete demonstration of recycled material marketplace system, aiming for commercialization within fiscal year 2025
【Related article】Hitachi develops AI for quality evaluation and degradation diagnosis of recycled plastics, aiming for cross-industry use of recycled materials through Cabinet Office SIP
