Matt Heath: Orange is new black in our road cone world

Some people think road cones are boring. They're wrong. The story of the road cone is a feel-good Kiwi tale of success, lives saved and drunken humour.

With massive infrastructure projects in some cities and rebuilds in others, road cones have never been a bigger part of the New Zealand way of life. We have more road cones per head of population than any country on earth (probably).

I'm talking about the cones on the road here. Not the ones behind desks. A road cone on the road is for safety and traffic direction. Human road cones are non-reflective, talentless job-huggers who do nothing but block things from happening. Employed placeholders with no ideas. You probably have a few in your office.

I first became interested in road cones growing up in Dunedin. Like many teenage New Zealanders I enjoyed stealing them and putting them on statues and up trees. One evening my mate The Cooz and I stole 11 road cones and placed them carefully in his sister's bedroom while she was out. It was a great joke until The Cooz' dad found out and yelled at us.

He claimed we had stolen $1100 worth of taxpayers' property. We could go to jail, some one could have died. He also claimed we'd nicked sherry and gin from his liquor cabinet to make rocket fuel. (Which was true). He made us return all 11 road cones to George St in sober daylight. Humiliating.

But do road cones really cost $100 each? If so that's a lot of money just sitting out on our roads. Right now I can see $600 hanging around a tree on my street. You probably passed $10,000 on your way to work. Frankly I doubt it.

But why speculate? For some much-needed road cone facts I went to our biggest manufacturer of them, Proline Plastics Limited.

It was everything I had dreamed of and more. The Willy Wonka of this operation is general manager Cameron Smith.

A man who oversees the production of thousands of road cones but is no road cone himself. He's passionate about the business and why not? The numbers are impressive. Between 150,000 and 250,000 road cones are sold into the New Zealand market each year.

Cameron estimates there are over a million road cones out there on our streets at any given time. Each one weighs 5kg and has a 5-year lifespan. That's a lot of landfill.

Luckily Proline Plastics have a recycling programme. They are the only people who chop up the thick orange witches hats, reconstitute them and get them back out there. A punishingly complex and costly thing to do.

Prime Minister Bill English in his speech to the 2017 National Party Conference proudly announced the Government's $32 billion infrastructure programme and added the quip: "It's a good time to have shares in an orange cone company."

Actually it's a tough game Bill. With our high dollar and manufacturing costs it's a fight. Our homegrown road cone heroes face brutal competition from Indian and Chinese imports.

But Cameron the cone expert suggests "buyer beware". You don't know what kind of cone you're going to get. Many of those imports are not up to it and don't comply with the NZ Standard.

Plus there is no way those overseas guys are recycling anything. So if you love your country get your road cones from the local boys. As for The Cooz' dad's cone cost estimate, he was miles off. We probably only nicked about 300 bucks worth that night.

Road cones are so unboring. Road cones are the unsung reflective heroes of the road, a pastime for drunken youths, saviour of the environment and a Kiwi success story like no other. So celebrate the humble road cone as you pass them. They're out there in the cold keeping you safe day and night, rain or shine.

As for the human road cones sitting behind desks at your work, grab them and shove them up a statue.

This article was first published on nzherald.co.nz and is republished here with permission.