The present subject matter provides colored wear tiles for use in optical sorting apparatuses and related methods that separate an associated material into a desired product and an undesired product. The colored wear tiles have a color and/or lightness value that permeates the entire body of the wear tile and sufficiently differs from the color and/or lightness of the associated material in order to allow the colored wear tile, or portions or pieces thereof, that may mix with the associated material, to be separated from the desired product by the sorting apparatus.