A matter of Principle

Made with Alusid®, Principle is our new wall tile that represents a huge step forward for the ceramic tile industry, as a mass produced high recycled content wall tile made in standard tile production. Every square metre of Principle diverts 8kg of waste from landfill.

Principle has been created by Alusid®, a creator of eco-friendly surfaces. Starting its life as a research project at the University of Central Lancashire by Dr Alasdair Bremner and Professor David Binns, Alusid explores the ways waste and low value materials could be reused rather than ending up as landfill. It was also important that the process used to manufacture would use less energy and added chemicals than conventional tile manufacturing.

In 2019, Alusid and Parkside launched Sequel Vibe, a wall tile created using 98% recycled materials from post-consumer glass and pre-consumer vitrified ceramic carefully bound during a low-impact, hand-made manufacturing process. Because of the hand-made nature of Sequel Vibe, production rates were limited to approximately 50 square metres per week and it was difficult to scale to mass production.

Principle takes the original materials and principles of Sequel Vibe and uses a patented process to adapt them, so they are suitable for use in standard machine-operated ceramic tile production processes. For the first time, it is now possible to mass produce a high recycled content tile using standard manufacturing. The production of Principle also stays true to Alusid’s original aim to use less energy, with its lower firing temperature seeing 23% less greenhouse gas emissions.

With a body made entirely from by-products of other manufacturing processes – tile dust and tableware production sludge – and recycled glass and ceramic, the tile has a total recycled content of 91.3%. The materials used for its production are locally sourced to its manufacturing site in Spain.

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