Collection Systems

It requires good operational and logistical organization to keep products and materials in the loop. Collection systems will therefore have an important role in a circular economy. For example, we need return logistics to ensure that products are returned from users to the right chain party. Technical systems that allow materials to be sorted properly. And recovery systems for recovering the pure raw materials. Things like smart inventory management and flexible capacity planning are also important. This prevents overproduction and waste.

Collection systems cover everything that is operationally necessary to close product and material loops. This is needed both for closed loops - in which a manufacturer focuses on processing its own end-of-life product. As for open loops - in which a joint system is set up to collect and reuse products from an entire sector. In both cases, techniques and logistics systems are needed to ensure that as much used material as possible is returned and can be reused.

Get started yourself

Have you introduced a reusable product or packaging to the market and want to close the chain? Or have you introduced a single-use product and want to close that chain as well? The Closing the Loop Tool introduces you to two types of collection systems and shows you how to organize them effectively in your chain.

To the tool