Colour Tone Masterbatch wins Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation 2022

Colour Tone Masterbatch Ltd, a subsidiary of Luxus Ltd,  has been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category.

Among the most prestigious awards for UK businesses, recognising and celebrating business excellence across the UK, the Queen’s Award for Enterprise was granted due to Colour Tone Masterbatch’s development and implementation of patented NIR detectable black colourants that enable the automatic sorting and recycling of black post-consumer mixed plastics.

Simon Atterby, General Manager at Colour Tone Masterbatch Ltd, said that this technology has diverted an estimated 10,000 tonnes of plastic from landfill: “We are incredibly proud to have received this prestigious award, which is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the whole team. The management of plastics is, without doubt, one of the greatest challenges we all face as we try to build a cleaner, greener future for the generations to come.” 

Black plastic packaging products have conventionally been mistakenly perceived by consumers as impossible to recycle. For many years, local collection services have refused to accept such products for this reason. The polymer itself is recyclable, but when coloured in a traditional way it cannot be recognised by NIR sorting equipment in post-consumer sorting facilities and is thus diverted to landfill. Colour Tone recognised this and through an innovative approach developed and patented a product that enables brand owners to continue to colour as they wish (including black) but via a colouring technology optimised for post-consumer sorting.

Tony Gaukroger, Director, Colour Tone Masterbatch Ltd, added: “We recognised that a fundamental part of tackling the challenge was developing technology that enabled the effective recycling of black plastic, so we applied our years of experience and insight and invested significant time and resources into making it happen. We look forward to continuing to play our part in driving innovation and applying our specialist knowledge to build a cleaner, brighter future for our industry.”