Onward march the Red Road Cones

Red Road Cones take a Christmas break.

The bane of our existence. Discovered in the most unlikely places. Infestations of them have invaded Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and even Masterton, especially SH2.

The construction PVC witches’ hats were designed as a safety and traffic management measure.

Proline Plastics has manufactured and recycled cones since the early 1990s. RTL (Roadsigns and Traffic Control Equipment Ltd is one of the largest suppliers of road cones in NZ. 

Many were originally and still are imported from Asia. Fulton Hogan import about 20,000 per annum.

Should you look on RTL’s website it comes as no surprise that the cost of a “Wide” profile red cone is $40.50 plus GST. A “Slimline Motorway” PVC cone is listed as $41.00 plus GST.

Interestingly, you can purchase 10 cones for $350.00 on TradeMe.

Unofficial figures suggest there may be several million red cones in use throughout NZ. With a projected 200,000 new cones being used throughout the year, costs keep mounting. This is the cost of cones. It does not factor in the vehicles that are used to position the cones on the road and nor does it include the number of workers positioning, collecting, or monitoring them. Those knocked down also have to be repositioned.

Auckland mayor Wayne Brown was quoted last March saying an estimated $145 million was spent _ in Auckland alone _ on road cones and traffic management, an amount he says is unjustifiable.

The estimated life span of a road cone is two to three years. Proline Plastics is recycling road cones

The old cones are shredded, mixed with new PVC then used in the base of new road cones using an injection moulding process. Proline Plastics is committed to greater sustainability.

The barrier to achieving higher recycling percentages is limited by the number of road cones that are returned for recycling.

Road cones are often found in obscure places. The fine for stealing a road cone may be $2,000. Or imprisonment??? However, often just a warning is given.

No road cones were hurt in the making of this article and those that did escape were returned

to the place where they had sitting for six months previously. 

Their brief absence was not noticed.