In a world’s first, recycled plastic is being used in road safety barriers.
A group of companies in Australia and New Zealand have developed a HDPE barrier incorporating 10% recycled content called that has been road crash-tested and approved for use by the Austroads Safety Barrier Assessment Panel.
In a circular system, old or defective barriers are processed into pellets and compounded into recycled resin by New Zealand-based Vision Plastics (VPLAS). ArmorZone, a New Zealand-based rotomoulding company, is responsible for rotomoulding the material back into barriers. The final product is owned and distributed by Australia-based Ingal Civil Products, which has partnered with Australian equipment rental company Coates to bring sustainable safety to Australian and New Zealand roads.
“As Australia’s road safety standard for traffic barriers has evolved, Coates has pursued sustainable ways to upgrade its fleet of water-filled HDPE barriers,” explained Robyn Simpson, national manager environment and sustainability for Coates. “We began a traffic barrier recycling program in FY22 focused solely on recycling non-compliant and end-of-life plastic barriers.”
“Now, we’re excited to partner with our supply chain on this initiative that incorporates 10% recycled materials into the manufacture of new barriers, creating a highly circular fleet. The result is a one-of-a kind MASH-compliant barrier that is durable, recyclable, sustainable and efficient to produce.”
The Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) presents uniform guidelines for crash testing permanent and temporary highway safety features and recommends evaluation criteria to assess test results.
Incorporating 10% recycled material, the HDPE barriers have been shown to be MASH TL2 compliant.
“This means up to 10% recycled materials can be re-used without diminishing the performance or integrity of the barrier in any way,” said Andre Garrido, national product manager for Coates. “And with further testing there is potential to increase the amount of recycled material used in the new barriers,” he added.
In the meantime, the companies are collaborating to explore ways to use the remaining 90% of material. Applications under testing include ground protection track mats and kayaks.
The recycled road safety barriers are 99% recyclable and last between five to seven years when not subject to vehicle collisions. They have been designed to require one third less water to fill up than stand standard plastic barriers.