Stopping traffic

Old road cones are being cleverly repurposed into safety matting.

Finding novel ways to reuse waste is at the heart of sustainable innovation – and it’s something that Matta Products has been doing for more than 30 years. Since 1992, the New Zealand company has turned trash otherwise destined for landfill into durable and safe surfacing products, such as mats for children’s playgrounds and workplace safety flooring. But the company’s founder, Murray Scott, has been pioneering recycling for even longer than that, having first designed an interlocking floor mat incorporating recycled tyre rubber in 1983.

To make its safety surface tiles, Matta Products has recycled more than 60 million kilograms of PVC and rubber. Industries the company sources its waste plastic from include healthcare, construction and transport, with examples of key ingredients used being electrical cable insulation, aprons, healthcare manufacturing waste, hospital waste (i.e. saline bags and tubes), road cones and even gumboots. Rubber buffings for the tiles’ underlying shock pads are sourced from truck tyre retreading operations. Matta Products also regrinds its own tiles at the end of their life to create new ones.

A recent initiative from Matta Products was a collaboration with infrastructure company Fulton Hogan to repurpose road cones. PVC road cones have a relatively short lifespan, with wear and tear, fading and loss of luminosity causing them to no longer comply with Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency specifications.

Observing growing stockpiles of old road cones, Fulton Hogan started taking cones from around the country to Matta Products. Fulton Hogan imports about 100 tonnes of road cones annually – made from PVC, these cones make the perfect source of raw material for Matta Products’ safety matting. “It’s always exciting to find familiar products that are typically destined for landfill – like road cones – that can be repurposed into our safety surfacing products,” said Matta Products director Dylan Matthews.