Old, unwanted road cones are finding a new life as safety matting in children’s playgrounds.
Construction company Fulton Hogan has so far collected 10,500 bright orange cones nationwide, and passed them onto the recycling company Matta Products.
Once destined for the landfill, the cones are broken into chips, mixed with other PVC recycled products and melted down.
Matta Products director Dylan Matthews said an injection moulder reshapes what’s left into safety tiles.
“We hope in time to start picking up more road cones from other companies and other products as well,” said Matthews.
The process takes four days from start to finish.
Fulton Hogan spokesman Beaudene Pumipi said he wants other companies, both in New Zealand and overseas, to take part.
“Our main goal is to grow this internationally. We’re looking at any opportunity we can to do so.
“The first thing is preventing these (road cones) from going into the landfill themselves and the second thing is providing a raw PVC material locally so that way we don’t have import from the source overseas to come into our shores,” said Pumipi.
Te Kura o Huriawa Thorrington principal Christine Harris said the environmentally friendly safety matting is being used in her school’s playground.
“It’s a huge plus for us it goes along with the ethos of our school which is about reducing waste,” said Harris.