For cyclists who fear the urban automotive jungle, help is at hand in a sustainable way: bike lanes with ZEBRA traffic separators from recycled plastic.
Spanish company Zicla launched them in its hometown Barcelona, and they’ve caught on in Bilbao, Sevilla and Madrid.
Veronoca Kuchinow, director of Zicla, says the challenge was to find an application for plastic cable waste generated by the recovery of copper and aluminium. This waste is only 80% PVC mixed with various other polymers and impurities, which makes it difficult to process and reuse.
Besides that, setting up a collection and recycling system is very difficult, says Mrs. Kuchinow, because, on one hand, landfilling is relatively easy and inexpensive. Meanwhile, recycled materials or products are usually expected to be of similar quality, and cheaper, when compared to those that use virgin raw materials.
‘’This is a great battle but it is worth the efforts when we need to change our habits and use resources in a wiser way,’’ says Mrs Kuchinov.
Zicla's inspiration is design. Solving the technical problems to recycled this kind of waste was not enough,so Zicla turned the challenge into reality by using design to create a new product.
The first step was taken when the city of Barcelona decided to invest in an ambitious program to promote the safe use of bicycles, to help overcome the traffic problems of this busy metropolis.
The solution offered to the authorities is ZEBRA: a traffic separator for cycle lanes consisting of 80cm long oval sections with high-reflecting painted strips for increased visibility. Its engineered curves and internal structure ensure durability. The product meets the safety needs of cyclists amid growing demand for bike lanes.
The special design of the separator ZEBRA provides two important improvements:
- The oval form permits installation on lanes in different positions: longitudinal and inclined shape, providing versatility on the street, even in curves.
- The possibility of random position of the painted strips make lots of combinations possible, and in different colours.
To make ZEBRA, Zicla developed an innovative extrusion injection molding technique with a local converter in order to use heavyweight, flexible cable waste.
This first application was a chance to make authorities aware of the recycling potential: Zicla’s ZEBRA separator received the 2009 Design for Recycling Award from the Catalan government
"Non-recycled PVC is dead, the door is now open to innovative recycled products,’’ says Mrs. Kuchinov.
Tackling the recycling challenge produced more than one application. The next step was the design of a modular platform for bus access. In this project, Zicla succeeded in offering a product that meets the various criteria of ease of assembly, adaptability, durability, mechanical resistance, low maintenance, visibility , etc.
The recycled modular platform replaces concrete platforms that are heavy and brittle. Installation of the modular platform is faster, and it can be used immediately. The technology to produce the building blocks of the platform are basically the same as the one developed to produce the traffic separators.
But the testing, as Mrs Veronica Kuchinow recalls, ‘’was something to remember. Besides the delegates of the metropolitan authorities, public furniture, sanitation, of the bus company, of the producer and designer, there were some people waiting at the bus stop. They were not surprised at all about the platform, until the testing team had a bus actually riding over the platform to confirm its mechanical resistance!"
Mrs. Kuchinow says she hopes Zicla’s products will help change consumer's mindset about recycling. "The fact that our products are for public use carries a message of visibility with exemplary environmental value. These are high quality products with a positive image."
See also the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgfKKXmLgaA.
