Forge Minerals
20 June 2025
COtooCLEAN is a waterless cleaning process for polyolefin films, that uses carbon dioxide as a solvent in the super-critical state. It removes oils, fats and any potentially absorbed contamination bringing the material back to food-grade standard.
When used with green co-solvents it can delaminate multi-layer films, and remove printing inks, boosting the recyclability of these challenging and widely used films.
It creates a circular solution to the largest plastic waste stream; boosting recycling and producing high- value recyclates that would boost the recovery of films and displace the demand for virgin plastics.
To date, COtooCLEAN has been recognised for its potential by Innovate UK, which funded a 3-year research project for prototype design, and by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste’s Flexibles Prize, granting $3M USD to build a small commercial scale plant to demonstrate the technology and collect data required for regulatory bodies.
Prof. Edward Kosior, Managing Director, COtooCLEAN:
COtooCLEAN’s cutting-edge decontamination technology provides a totally new way of decontaminating plastic films to allow them to be used once more in food-contact applications. The COtooCLEAN process harnesses the unique properties of non-toxic super-critical carbon dioxide (scCO₂), to decontaminate, de-laminate and de-ink mono and multilayer flexible polyolefin films (PE & PP). By fusing scientific precision with innovative engineering, COtooCLEAN overcomes the technical barriers to flexible film recycling – delivering a solution that is both technically robust and economically viable.
Tom Turner, Abel + Imray:
Effective and efficient plastics recycling continues to be a major challenge around the world, not only in terms of ensuring that all materials can be processed but also providing recycled materials suitable for all applications. COtooCLEAN’s technology hits both of those challenges, providing a route to recycling of plastic films that are most often sent to landfill while also offering a product that meet the strict requirements of food-contact applications. COtooCLEAN’s innovative recycling solution is an excellent contender for the Earthshot prize!
