In Pickler, every unique environmental material state should usually be modeled as a separate material line.
This is important because different material states often have different environmental impacts and therefore need to be mapped to different datasets in IDEMAT.
That means that when a product contains:
recycled content;
virgin material;
bio-based material;
PCR;
PIR;
or certified material;
these should usually be split into separate material lines.
For example, this structure is not ideal for Pickler:
Material | Weight |
PET 40% recycled | 100 g |
While this works well for ERP or product systems, it does not work well for environmental modeling because Pickler cannot accurately map both the recycled and virgin share to separate IDEMAT datasets.
Instead, the recommended structure would be:
Material | Weight |
Recycled PET | 40 g |
Virgin PET | 60 g |
This allows Pickler to:
map each material to the correct IDEMAT dataset;
calculate environmental impact more accurately;
improve recycled content reporting;
and make product comparisons more reliable.
The same principle applies to:
bio-based vs fossil material;
recycled vs virgin paper;
PCR vs virgin plastics;
and multilayer materials with coatings or barrier layers.
When NOT to split materials
Pickler uses a cutoff threshold of 2%.
This means materials below approximately 2% of the total product weight usually do not need to be modeled separately unless they significantly affect:
recyclability;
environmental impact;
or compliance reporting.
This often applies to:
pigments;
inks;
additives;
or trace materials.
The goal is to keep the model:
realistic;
explainable;
and manageable.