NEW YORK, NY / ACCESS Newswire / September 17, 2025 / Every great industry eventually faces the same showdown. Not over who builds the best technology or who moves the fastest, but over who writes the rules. VHS vs. Betamax. Windows vs. Mac. iOS vs. Android. History is peppered with examples where setting the standard meant owning the market. Few would have predicted that recycling - once dismissed as a regulatory afterthought and a cost of doing business - would be the next arena for such a battle.

Yet here it is, and SMX (NASDAQ:SMX) is positioning itself as the referee everyone else will have to play by. That claim is no exaggeration when you consider that SMX and BT-Systems' Competence Center REDWAVE just pulled off a successful two-day demonstration before heavyweight influencer NAFRA. The trials proved what no one else has managed: real-time sorting and certification of food-grade plastics, flame-retardant plastics, and even carbon black plastics, long considered impossible to recycle at scale.

The bigger story, however, is not the breakthrough itself, but what it unlocks. For decades, recycling has been mired in fragmentation, with each country, and often each city, writing its own patchwork of rules for what counts as recycled. Audits were inconsistent, compliance was more paperwork than proof, and the result was confusion for companies and skepticism for consumers. That's changed.

What SMX has just demonstrated is that the patchwork method of recycling can finally be replaced by a unified framework built on molecular traceability and block-chain-backed digital passports. And the best part of that proposition is that it is no longer theory. It is a system running at industrial speed, ready to be scaled.

This System Changes The Rules of Recycling

And here is why that matters. Whoever sets the recognized standard for certified recycling will control the flow of billions, even trillions, in global trade. Companies that want to sell into compliant markets will have to meet that standard. Governments that want to enforce recycling mandates will have to rely on that standard. Investors who want to price the value of recycled content will have to look to that standard. This is not just about recycling. It is about market dominance.

The Plastic Cycle Token (PCT) is the financial proof point. Once plastics are verified through SMX's system, they can be tokenized and traded. That means standards are not just about compliance. They are about creating an entirely new asset class that regulators, companies, and investors can all agree on. Without proof, recycling is an expense. With proof, it becomes a tradable commodity. The PCT makes that shift possible, and standards make it inevitable.

By demonstrating their system to NAFRA, SMX and REDWAVE effectively handed an influential body a blueprint for global adoption. NAFRA represents European interests in flame-retardant and high-performance materials where compliance is non-negotiable. Their validation signals that SMX's system is not just about recycling bales of plastic. It is about meeting the toughest safety standards on an industrial scale. That opens doors across Europe's regulatory corridors, from automotive and construction to consumer electronics, where flame-retardant plastics are mission-critical. When institutions like these validate a system, it moves from experiment to inevitability. That is how standards are born.

SMX is Creating Global Material Economics

SMX has made no secret of its ambition to turn proof into the foundation of global material economics. With REDWAVE, it now has an industrial partner with the scale and credibility to take that vision out of the lab and onto the production line. Their joint system does not just recycle plastics. It certifies them, embeds trust into them, and sets them apart as compliant across any jurisdiction. That is exactly how VHS became the global norm and how GDPR reshaped privacy law. Standards start with proof, and SMX has just provided it.

The next phase is deployment, and with the LOI already in place, industrial rollouts are coming. That will not just raise the bar for recycling. It will force competitors, regulators, and entire industries to measure themselves against the SMX-REDWAVE system. Standards are never polite suggestions. They are the rules of the game. And the company that writes them is the one that defines the market.

Recycling is no longer about who can collect the most bottles or cut the most emissions. It is about who controls the certification that makes those efforts valuable. With NAFRA watching closely, SMX and REDWAVE are not just in the recycling business. They are in the business of setting the standard. And in the history of markets, that is always where the real power lies.

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) Public Limited