The NIRSort project is based on the successful previous work of the Luxus subsidiary Colour Tone to develop NIR reflective and transparent alternatives to carbon black for colouring plastics. The project aims to bring market readiness to a new range of colourants for polymers. The colourants will enable the current NIR sorting operations to segregate black and coloured plastics from streams, where none have been able to before. The sorting can potentially be done to a purity that the sorted plastics will be usable in high value recycled engineering polymers.
Closing the loop on caps and closures
Tony Gaukroger, Director, Colour Tone discusses why end-of-life concerns for caps and closures have been put in the ‘spotlight’ as manufacturers adopt the How2Recycle label.
Materials design strategies for end-of-life processing
Tony Gaukroger, Director, Colour Tone explains how an innovative near-infrared colourant can address end-of-life product processing concerns. The Design Council recently estimated that ‘80%
Tony Gaukroger, Director, Colour Tone Masterbatch argues why removing plastics packaging will do more harm than good.
The government’s announcement that it intends to explore with supermarkets the introduction of plastic free aisles where food is sold loose as part of its
‘Back to black’
‘Back to black’ – Tony Gaukroger, Director, Colour Tone Masterbatch explains why brand owners are making the switch to recyclable black plastics Black plastics have
Beyond black plastics – Tony Gaukroger, Director, Colour Tone explains why ramping up plastics recycling makes sense.
Last week the industry set 2018 as the deadline for the recycling of all black plastic packaging bottles, pots, tubs and trays. It was agreed
Standfirst: Plastics are all around us but we still cannot sort and recycle numerous types of it. Andrea Lockerbie finds out more about a new project that hopes to start making this possible
The need to expand the debate on near-infrared (NIR) sorting of post-consumer plastics away from just black packaging waste is one of the aims of