The environmental products challenge was this: make a fastening product that is strong enough to be hit with a hammer, tough enough to remain outdoors, but be more environmentally sustainable and eventually biodegradable, so that after deployment, it can be safely left in the soil.
The customer, Maccaferri New Zealand, presented this conundrum to Mulford Engineering Plastics and it solved it with a new and ideal solution in leading-edge materials and design expertise.
In the process of delivering a solution to this customer’s particular challenge, Mulfords have commercialised the first large scale use of a new eco-friendly plastic material developed by New Zealand Crown Research Institute Scion, and developed a product called Biopeg.
Maccaferri is a recognised company in soil stabilisation systems. It required a product to secure the specialist range of natural, biopolymer and synthetic fibre erosion control blankets (ECB’s) and turf revegetation mats (TRM’s) to the ground surface to effect a safe and sustainable solution.
The peg needed to be able to withstand hammering into place, to resist pull-out forces exerted by winds or heavy rain fall-off, and to degrade benignly over several years, so that it could be left safely in place after soils were stabilised by new plant growth.
Many traditional pins can be a potential liability to land owners such as councils and it was important to be able to have a pin that reduced such injury risk to the public from foot traffic in situations where the public had current or future access.
The Mulford Engineering Plastics Christchurch-based design team of Barry Pett and Graeme Wooldridge came up with an ideal product design, which utilised a combination of new sustainable, natural and biodegradable materials.
These eco-friendly materials were developed in New Zealand in conjunction with Scion and manufactured for Mulfords under license, from a formulated mixture of materials that are friendly to the environment.
The polymers used in these products finally decompose into water, carbon dioxide and humus. Decomposition occurs naturally through the combined actions of bacteria, fungi and natural weathering.
Additives in the material are simply natural minerals and biomass derived by-products. At least 30% of the product weight consists of these natural or bio based additives, which are sourced from within New Zealand.
Biopeg is being marketed worldwide through Maccaferri New Zealand.