Vinyl Council Australia — James Morando

Vinyl Council of Australia - Soundway concept

How might we divert tonnes of waste PVC truck banners from landfill to a new and useful second life?

Understanding the problem

This project was brought to us by the Vinyl Council of Australia to innovate effective uses for PVC truck banner waste. Moving the composite truck banner material away from land fill and into high value products.

Experimenting with the material

Shredded truck banner was the material given to us to explore and identify potential uses. The most important part of this stage was to identify manufacturing techniques suited to the unusual material. Through hands on experimentation, we found heating the material under pressure proved to be very effective. The material could be formed into useful shapes and melted to set the shape.

Thinking big

Many different concepts were considered, from jewellery to office and homeware products, however it soon became evident to me that any solution would have to make use of very large quantities of shredded banners. With this in mind, I directed my attention to high material usage applications like tiling and building materials.

The final concept

After many experiments, lots of concept design and understanding manufacturability, the final concept for the vinyl material was as highway sound barriers. The round geometry of the discs was easy to achieve with the material saving on cost compared to complex geometries. This solution not only utilizes the vinyl material but also saves timber and concrete that would normally be used.