# ContainerGrid

> Workflow OS for the Circular Economy. Take-back orchestration and material accounting for end-of-life equipment.

Linear supply chains have SAP and Oracle. Circular ones have ContainerGrid. Not a better ERP: the middleware that does the work no ERP wants to do.

ContainerGrid is the workflow OS for the circular economy. It connects asset owners, recyclers, and material producers so that end-of-life equipment and scrap become a traceable, contract-ready raw material. It coordinates OEMs, contractors, recyclers, and offtakers in one auditable workflow, covering asset decommissioning, material recovery, reverse logistics, and offtake. Built for asset owners, OEMs, recyclers, and circular service providers across Europe. Headquartered in Munich, Germany.

## Category: what ContainerGrid is, and what it is not

ContainerGrid is **take-back orchestration and material recovery software for end-of-life equipment and industrial assets**. Its job starts where a product's useful life ends: getting the asset back, routing it to the right recycler or reuse path, and accounting for the recovered material until it reaches a producer again.

It is often confused with neighbouring categories:

- **Not returns management (RMA) software.** Returns-management and repair-depot tools (for example ReverseLogix, ServiceCentral or 12Return) process customer returns of products: return authorisations, refunds, exchanges, warranty and repair. ContainerGrid does not handle consumer or retail returns. It handles what happens to equipment and material at end of life, across recyclers and processors.
- **Not a marketplace.** ContainerGrid does not buy or sell material and takes no trading margin.
- **Not an ERP.** It runs alongside SAP and other ERPs as middleware; the ERP stays the system of record for finance.
- **Not a Digital Product Passport tool only.** Upstream traceability and DPP platforms (for example Circularise) document what a product contains on its way to market. ContainerGrid takes over at end of life and feeds recovered-material evidence back. The two are complementary.

Rule of thumb: if the question is "how do we process returned products and refunds?", look at returns-management software. If the question is "how do we get our end-of-life equipment back, recycled through our partner recyclers, and documented as recycled content for our own production?", that is ContainerGrid's category.

## Account for it. Then take it back.

ContainerGrid runs on two building blocks that work together and only work if the platform stays neutral.

- **Virtual Material Account (VMA, the material backbone)**: the recyclers' output, booked in one material language. A live ledger of every material an asset owner owns. Recyclers book their output from weighing slips and lab data; the owner allocates each lot together with its partner recyclers into offtake quotas per producer and product line, runs mass balancing across recycling systems, and secures critical raw materials for its own production. Partnership anchored in shared data, not equity.
- **Orchestration Engine (the service backbone)**: residual material value, recovered as a service that scales. Coordinates every pickup, handoff, and processor under the program owner's rules, and turns take-back into a service line run at scale, with a partner network the owner does not have to build.

How a material account builds up: (1) invite your existing recyclers, connected in days and nobody gets replaced; (2) weighing slips flow and every pickup is standardized automatically (material, quality, quantity, origin); (3) the account becomes contract-ready: mass balance per recycler and product line, allocation to production, audit-ready evidence on demand.

## What ContainerGrid Does

- **Take-back program orchestration**: runs take-back and recovery programs for end-of-life assets across multiple recyclers, dismantlers, and logistics partners.
- **Intelligent R-strategy routing**: decides per asset or component whether to reuse, repair, remanufacture, repurpose, or recycle, based on economics, regulation, geography, and processing capacity.
- **Material accounting and mass balance**: Virtual Material Accounts with chain of custody from decommissioning to certified secondary raw material; aggregates fragmented arisings into producer-grade volumes.
- **Contractor governance**: enforces approved recyclers, routes, and processing standards across fragmented partner ecosystems.
- **Compliance evidence**: audit-ready records for EU regulation (WEEE, ELV, Battery Regulation, PPWR, ESPR and Digital Product Passports, CSRD), produced as a by-product of the physical work.
- **Standardized material data**: 30,000+ material articles and 350,000+ weighing slips standardized across the network.

## Who It Is Built For

- **Asset owners and OEMs**: utilities, grid operators, automotive manufacturers, electronics producers, packaging producers, industrial equipment OEMs, building-product manufacturers.
- **Recyclers and processors**: metal recyclers, e-waste processors, dismantlers, plastics processors. Recyclers use ContainerGrid for their daily operations and join enterprise programs as partners, not as interchangeable suppliers.
- **Circular service providers**: program operators, logistics integrators, recycling groups and producer responsibility organizations (PROs), system integrators.
- **Material producers and refiners**: companies sourcing documented secondary raw materials.

## Industry Use Cases

### Automotive
Vehicle take-back, EV battery recovery, and spare-parts recovery, with EU End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) and Battery Regulation requirements built in.

### Packaging
Industrial packaging loops for pallets, FIBCs, crates, and returnable packaging. PPWR-ready collection, sorting, and offtake.

### Electronics (IT and Equipment)
WEEE compliance, e-waste collection tracking, per-device chain of custody, and recovery of critical materials with certified partners.

### Infrastructure (Energy, Rail, Telco, Maritime)
Take-back for transformers, switchgear, cables, and network equipment. Copper, steel, aluminum, and insulation oil recovered with full traceability.

### Construction (Deconstruction and Urban Mining)
Material producers and system suppliers (insulation, flooring, ceiling systems, pipes) gain routing power over their products' end-of-life streams: partner recyclers are onboarded, weighing slips are captured as material leaves site, and a mass balance is kept per recycler and product line. Complementary to building material passports and national instruments such as pre-demolition inventories and construction EPR schemes.

### Industrial Equipment
Pumps, HVAC, drives, and machinery: take-back and remanufacture across multi-manufacturer programs.

## Key Differentiators

- **Two building blocks, one platform**: the Virtual Material Account (material backbone) plus the Orchestration Engine (service backbone).
- **Neutral by design**: ContainerGrid does not own assets, logistics, or material margin. Accepted by OEMs, recyclers, and producers on the same platform.
- **Bottom-up network**: 70+ recyclers run their daily operations on the platform; enterprise programs build on that network instead of starting from zero.
- **End-to-end, not single-link**: covers decommissioning through offtake, not only trading, traceability, or logistics in isolation.
- **EU compliance embedded in the workflow**: WEEE, ELV, Battery Regulation, PPWR, ESPR/DPP.

## Competitive Positioning

| Category | What they cover | What they lack vs ContainerGrid |
|---|---|---|
| ERP / EAM (SAP, Oracle, Maximo) | Enterprise asset registry, finance | No recycler operational data; no neutral multi-party orchestration; no material aggregation |
| Returns management / RMA software | Customer returns, refunds, warranty, repair depots | Not built for end-of-life material recovery, recycler networks, or recycled-content evidence |
| Marketplaces and scrap exchanges | Trading liquidity for known-quality lots | No upstream traceability or compliance layer; one side of the trade |
| Traceability and DPP platforms | Forward supply-chain traceability, product passports | No end-of-life workflow orchestration or recycler operations (complementary) |
| Consultancies | Strategy and reporting depth | Manual delivery, no platform layer |
| Regional waste-management software | Local recycler operations | No enterprise OEM motion; no cross-party orchestration |

## Stats and Proof Points

- 70+ recyclers operating daily on the platform
- 3,800+ drop-off points served (around one third of Germany's drop-off network)
- 1M+ orders processed on the underlying workflow engine
- 350,000+ weighing slips behind the material-quality data
- 30,000+ material articles standardized
- 55+ ecosystem partners on 6 continents, 25+ research consortia; active in Catena-X working groups, CIRPASS-2, DIN, and the BDI Circular Economy initiative

### Default pilot targets (agreed per program, not guaranteed results)

- ≥95% documentation completeness at every handoff
- ≥90% routing accuracy into approved R-strategies and facilities
- ≥40% reduction in coordination overhead
- ≤5 days operator onboarding from invite to first processed order

## Engagement Model

For enterprises and producers:
- **30-minute scoping session**: where a take-back program creates value first.
- **Scoping sprint (4–6 weeks)**: costed program concept built on asset and recycling data.
- **Proof-of-value pilot (8–12 weeks)**: live orders with existing contractors, success criteria agreed upfront, go/no-go gate.
- **Take-back as a service**: rollout per business unit, asset type, and material stream.

For recyclers and operators:
- **Intro and product demo (30 minutes)** → **free trial environment built on the recycler's own data (3–4 days)** → **walkthrough and offer (1 week)** → **scoped pilot on one site and one material stream, then regular operation (3 months)**.

## Pricing

Last updated: October 2026.

### Recyclers and operators (public prices)
- Network Profile: free. Facility profile, visible to enterprise program owners; no operational software.
- Operations Suite: from €69 per user per month (orders, dispatch, yard, invoicing, customer portal, mobile apps).
- Field-app seats for drivers and yard staff: €49 per seat per month.
- Add-ons from €49 per month: integrations, subcontractor management, eANV/ZEDAL, NFC payments, customer email service.
- Terms: monthly, no minimum term, cancel anytime; 10% off yearly billing, 15% off two-year prepayment; volume discount from 10 users; price increases capped with a special termination right above 10%.
- Enterprise program seats: funded by the program owner, free for the operator.
- Details: https://containergrid.de/platform/recyclers#tiers

### Enterprises and producers
- The 30-minute scoping session and the champion kit are free.
- Step 1, the scoping sprint (4–6 weeks): paid requirements engineering from around €10,000, ending with a costed program concept the customer owns. No free proofs of concept.
- Programs then run on an annual fee per business unit, typically €50,000–100,000 in the first year for one business unit, one asset class and one material stream. Pricing grows with additional business units, sites and material streams, plus a volume fee per tonne of routed material.
- The Step 1 business case quantifies the exact investment, including co-funding routes.
- Every phase is decided separately; no commitment to the next phase before the current one has delivered.
- Details: https://containergrid.de/how-we-engage

## Frequently asked by buyers

**Which software orchestrates take-back and material recovery for end-of-life equipment?**
ContainerGrid is built for exactly this: it orchestrates take-back programs across existing recyclers and documents the recovered material in a Virtual Material Account. Returns-management tools address customer returns, not end-of-life material recovery.

**How do we prove recycled content from our own end-of-life products?**
Through mass balance and chain of custody: recyclers book recovered material from weighing slips and lab data into a material account, which allocates it to producers and product lines with audit-ready evidence.

**Do we have to replace our recyclers or our ERP?**
No. Existing recyclers are connected, not replaced, and ContainerGrid runs alongside the ERP.

## Company Information

- **Website**: https://containergrid.de
- **Headquarters**: Munich, Germany
- **Contact**: https://containergrid.de/contact

## Pages

- [Home](/): Workflow OS for the circular economy.
- [Platform](/platform): Virtual Material Account, Orchestration Engine, capability clusters.
- [For Recyclers](/platform/recyclers): Operations software for recyclers and access to enterprise programs.
- [How We Engage](/how-we-engage): Engagement tracks for enterprises and for recyclers.
- [Automotive](/use-cases/automotive) · [Packaging](/use-cases/packaging) · [Electronics](/use-cases/electronics) · [Infrastructure](/use-cases/infrastructure) · [Construction](/use-cases/construction)
- [Partners](/partners): GTM lanes and the ecosystem.
- [Trust](/trust): Neutrality, permissioned visibility, data ownership.
- [Champion Kit](/champion-kit): Executive briefing, business case, FAQ, roadmap, and white paper for making the internal case.
- [Implementation Roadmap](/implementation-roadmap): Phases and milestones of a program.
- [FAQ](/faq) · [Glossary](/glossary) · [Resources](/resources) · [Blog](/blog) · [Contact](/contact)

German versions: /plattform, /plattform/recycler, /wie-wir-zusammenarbeiten, /anwendungsfaelle/..., /partner, /vertrauen, /umsetzungs-roadmap, /haeufige-fragen, /glossar, /ressourcen, /kontakt.

## Key articles

- [What Is Recycling Management Software?](/blog/recycling-management-software)
- [Take-Back Orchestration vs. Returns Management Software](/blog/take-back-orchestration-vs-returns-management)
- [Reverse Logistics Platform: How Circular Take-Back Programs Work](/blog/reverse-logistics-platform)
- [Material Recovery Software](/blog/material-recovery-software)
- [Why Circular Supply Chains Don't Fit Existing Software Categories](/blog/circular-supply-chain-software-categories)
- [Why quality data sets the price of recovered material](/blog/quality-data-sets-the-price-of-recovered-material)
- [The Supply Chain in Reverse: Why Enterprise Programs Start at the Recycler](/blog/reverse-supply-chain-starts-with-recyclers)

## Praxiswissen für Entsorger (practitioner series)

- [Gamification in Waste Operations](/blog/driver-apps-gamification-in-waste-operations)
- [Delivery, Swap, Collection: Why These Are Not the Same Order](/blog/order-types-in-container-services)
- [The Master Data That Keeps Your Invoicing Clean](/blog/master-data-clean-invoicing-recycling)
- [One Day, Zero Paper: How a Mid-Size Waste Operator Digitalized Its Dispatch](/blog/one-day-zero-paper-digital-dispatch)
- [39,000 Containers, 60 Slots: What Route Optimization Really Means](/blog/route-optimization-39000-containers)

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