Sony has developed practical “Material-to-Material recycling” that reuses plastic recovered from the rear covers of end-of-life televisions in new TV products.
Material-to-Material recycling refers to recycling where materials recovered from used products are reused as raw materials in new products of the same category with equivalent quality.
The recycling has been made possible by successfully incorporating plastic recovered from end-of-life TVs by the designated collection facility newly added as part of the raw material for Sorplas, Sony’s flame-retardant recycled plastic material.
The new recycling method utilising Sorplas will be implemented for the first time in the 65-inch model of the 4K OLED Bravia 8 (2024 models), with global shipments scheduled to begin within 2025.
Rear covers collected from end-of-life TVs contain various types of plastic, which previously made direct reuse in new products difficult due to differences in strength and texture.
To overcome this challenge, the Bravia design team collaborated with Sony Semiconductor Solutions Corporation, the developer of Sorplas, to create sorting technology and optimal material blending methods suitable for television reuse.
This technology enables the collection and sorting of specific plastics from used TV rear covers from any manufacturer for partial reuse as raw materials while maintaining the same high quality as conventional Sorplas.
In the future, Sony aims to achieve complete “closed-loop recycling” (fully circular recycling that reuses end-of-life products as raw materials for new products) by recovering and reusing rear covers made with Sorplas.