SMX Makes Ghost Plastics Visible and Trackable as Flame-Retardant and Carbon Black Plastics Passport Emerges (NASDAQ:SMX)

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 18, 2025 / For too long, recycling has worn the label of obligation. Governments issued quotas, companies ticked boxes under duress, and consumers quietly questioned whether any of it mattered. The cycle usually ended in the same place - higher costs, flat recycling rates, and very little trust. SMX (NASDAQ:SMX), together with BT-Systems' Competence Center REDWAVE, just rewrote that story. What was once compliance theater is now a commercial engine with real horsepower, one that stretches across food, automotive, and electronics markets.

The proof came in demonstrations before NAFRA, an institution with the clout to turn trials into standards. SMX showed that plastics long considered untouchable can now be detected, separated, and certified at industrial speed. Food-grade packaging, flame-retardant materials, and even the notorious carbon black plastics are no longer landfill-bound. They are verified, valuable, and ready to re-enter global supply chains. That single shift moves recycling out of the sustainability column and straight into the profit column.

Certified Recycling Gains Global Momentum

Start with food-grade plastics. For packaging companies and consumer brands, this has been the biggest bottleneck. Regulators demand more recycled content, consumers demand safer packaging, but supply chains have been unpredictable at best. SMX's molecular markers, running on REDWAVE's high-speed detection lines, change the equation. Food-grade content can now be certified and delivered at scale. Companies cut costs by reducing virgin resin use, regulators finally get verifiable compliance, and shoppers get packaging they can believe in. For a sector squeezed from every angle, this is not a minor upgrade. It is survival.

Flame-retardant plastics tell a similar story. Critical for safety in vehicles and electronics, they have historically been too risky to recycle without contamination. SMX broke through that wall. With molecular traceability, these plastics can be confidently identified and reused without compromising safety standards. That means automakers can meet environmental targets without sacrificing performance, and electronics manufacturers can reduce costs without cutting corners. NAFRA's presence here is no accident - as a European body representing flame-retardant interests, their validation signals that SMX's technology can carry the regulatory weight needed to reshape entire industries. Doors across Europe's automotive and electronics corridors just swung open.

Turning Proof Into Market Standards

Then there is carbon black plastic, recycling's most infamous holdout. Its pigmentation made it invisible to traditional detection, leaving it outside the system for decades. SMX made the invisible visible. By embedding markers directly into the material, carbon black plastics can now be verified and certified in real time. For manufacturers, this means access to a cheaper, compliant stream of high-performance plastics, freeing up food-grade PET to be used where it belongs. Supply chains stabilize, costs drop, and materials finally find their rightful place.

The Plastic Cycle Token (PCT) takes these breakthroughs from proof to profit. Each certified unit of recycled plastic becomes a tradable digital asset, moving recycling from compliance cost to market opportunity. Food companies can show certified inputs, automakers can access ESG-linked financing, and investors can participate in a new commodity class. The PCT turns verification into valuation - proof you can bank on.

This is a pivotal, even transformative, moment for SMX. And it is not just because the technology works. It is because it worked under the eyes of NAFRA, an institution with the authority to turn a demonstration into a directive. Their validation opens doors to policy adoption and industry mandates. The ripple effect is clear: once standards are demonstrated, they get adopted, and once they are adopted, markets reward the players who led the way.

From Compliance Cost to Value

That is why the payoff is so large. Food companies gain reliable certified inputs. Automakers secure compliant, high-performance plastics. Electronics manufacturers achieve cost savings and safety compliance in the same stroke. Regulators get enforceable tools. Investors gain a tradable asset class tied to the real economy. Everyone benefits, except those clinging to the old paperwork-and-promises model.

Recycling has finally shed its reputation as a burden. SMX has shown it is a profit driver. The proof is visible, the payoff is real, and the companies that recognize it first will not just comply with recycling rules. They will own the competitive edge in the next era of global trade.

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.

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SOURCE: SMX (Security Matters)