George Brown College’s Research and Innovation team partnered with Toronto startup Plastic Flux to create a solution to an overwhelming problem — plastic waste, particularly black plastics, which aren’t recognized by recycling plant optical sorters, so they end up in landfill.
Plastic Flux founders Hanson Wong and Mohesan Sreekuladevan worked with GBC’s Advanced Manufacturing and Prototyping Lab to create a custom sheet press so those unrecyclable black plastics can be reused and turned into new items.
GBC Professor, Technologist, and Principal Investigator on the project John-Allan Ellingson helped Plastic Flux create the custom press.
“The intellectual property that we generate, everything belongs to the industry partner,” he told the Toronto Star. “All the work we do, physical as well as the design, is the property of the industry partners. So, it’s their equipment.”