Recycling Tyres for the Community

That’s where Matta comes in - one of several businesses taking what was once a waste product and an environmental headache and giving it a new life, in some cases several lives.

Otaki-based Matta produces playground mats and surfaces from recycled plastic. Used tyres come into the process for their safety surfacing solutions for playgrounds, exercise and commercial areas.

Matta managing director Dylan Matthews says on average the company recycles around 800,000kg of tyre buffings each year.

Buffings are when the used tyre is broken down into a powder or shredded substance and which come in various grades.

“We use it in our shock pads that go underneath the playground surface tiles that we make. Those shock pads are 75 percent rubber which is all from recycled tyres,” he says.

The system they use binds the buffings to form a new product that is flexible and durable, and the beauty of used tyres is it minimises the use of virgin materials in production and supports a circular economy, he says, while offering the company a competitive advantage.

“The product can be recycled repeatedly and using recycled tyre rubber offers a social licence to operate,” Dylan says.

The shock pads are in use throughout New Zealand, he says. Local councils use them in public playgrounds and many schools use them as a base in playgrounds.

And it’s not only end-of-life tyres going into the mix but road cones, deflated pool toys and gumboots.

Since Matta has been operating, Dylan estimates they’ve turned more than 60m kg of waste plastic and rubber otherwise destined for landfill into highly durable and safe surfacing products.

From its tiny Otaki beginnings Matta has expanded worldwide and can be found in the likes of a children’s playgrounds in California, the United Kingdom, Australia, while locally it has become the most recognisable surface in playgrounds around the country.

In 2022 the company took home the award for Excellence in Sustainability ExportNZ ASB Wellington Export Awards 2022.