NEW YORK, NY, NY / ACCESS Newswire / October 3, 2025 / Plastic isn't just everywhere - it's everything. From the food we buy to the cars we drive, the global plastics economy is worth more than $800 billion. But its future hinges on one critical shift: moving waste from liability to asset. That shift depends on proof - the ability to verify recycled content with the same rigor as virgin plastic. Without it, recycling stalls, ESG pledges collapse into greenwashing, and entire supply chains lose value.
SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) is tackling that credibility gap head-on. In its first major U.S. initiative, the company has stepped into the market with a well-regarded Miami plastics distributor to integrate its molecular marker technology into rPET resin in line with FDA regulations for Food Contact Substances (21 CFR). In practice, this means recycled material can carry a permanent, invisible marker that confirms its origin, composition, and compliance - even in food-grade packaging, one of the strictest categories in the industry.
This happens at an opportune time. For decades, recycled plastic has been treated as a second-class material, rarely finding its way into applications that require rigorous oversight. By showing that molecular markers can operate within FDA-regulated frameworks, SMX has opened the door for recycled plastics to move beyond discount markets and into premium categories. That's not a symbolic shift. It's a revaluation of plastic waste itself.
A Global Strategy in Motion
This U.S. milestone builds on a broader rollout. In Southeast Asia, SMX has partnered with packaging companies to embed markers at the extrusion stage, building proof into products from the start. In Europe, trials with REDWAVE have proven that even hard-to-recycle materials, such as flame-retardant and carbon-black plastics, can be identified and verified. Together with its U.S. entry, these initiatives form a blueprint for a global proof layer - one where recycled plastics, regardless of geography or application, carry the same credibility as virgin materials.
For global stakeholders, regulators, and manufacturers alike, the timing couldn't be sharper. Demand for recycled plastics is rising as governments enforce quotas and global brands set ambitious sustainability targets. Yet recycling rates remain low, in part because the market has lacked a universal way to verify and monetize recycled content at scale. SMX closes that gap.
By embedding molecular proof and linking it to blockchain-backed credits such as its Plastic Cycle Token (PCT), SMX gives plastic waste a measurable, tradable identity. Instead of being a compliance cost, recycling becomes a revenue stream - one that can be priced, traded, and financed like any other commodity. Proof stops being paperwork and starts being currency.
From Compliance Cost to Revenue Stream
The plastics market may be worth $824 billion, but the $50 billion recycling segment is where the immediate disruption is happening. And in that disruption lies the proof of an old adage: one person's trash is another's treasure. For the first time, recycled content isn't just a matter of sorting bins and supply chain promises - it can carry verified proof at the molecular level, proof that survives every stage of the loop and can be monetized in real time.
With molecular markers now operating within FDA-regulated frameworks, SMX isn't simply entering the recycling market - it's reshaping it. Food-grade rPET demonstrates that the technology isn't limited to niche categories, but can scale into the most tightly regulated and highest-value applications. That makes plastic waste more than a compliance burden. It makes it a bankable resource.
This isn't just about recycled plastic. It's about rewriting how value is assigned in the materials economy - turning waste into an asset, compliance into currency, and proof into the foundation of growth. In that framework, proof isn't just value. It's advantage.
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: matters relating to the Company's fight against abusive and possibly illegal trading tactics against the Company's stock; successful launch and implementation of SMX's joint projects with manufacturers and other supply chain participants of gold, steel, rubber 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; any lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on SMX's business; 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.
EMAIL: info@securitymattersltd.com
SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters)
View the original press release on ACCESS Newswire