The new Harvey EcoTile has a number of positive features, including good UV and impact resistance. It weighs in at just over 15kg per square metre compared to 49kg/m² for the concrete version, which means that transport costs are greatly reduced

An ‘Africa-first’ as Harvey Roofing introduces EcoTile

HARVEY Roofing Products recently unveiled its groundbreaking Harvey EcoTile roof tile, a new tile manufactured from recycled plastics and mineral scrap from mining in a premiere event for a product that is believed to be a world first, or certainly an ‘Africa first’.

The official launch, which was actually a relaunch, took place in April in the Western Cape, which the cognoscenti appear to have deemed would be the most likely market in which to test the viability of this inspired product.

Plastic roof tiles have been in the market for some time, all well and good, but the Harvey product is a combination of recycled plastic material as well as waste mineral material from a mining process that gives sustainability kudos to both, the plastic and the mined material. Harvey had introduced the product before, in 2018, when it won the SAPRO Recycled Designed Product Award … but then retracted from the awards programme when it realized it was not ready to introduce the new tile to the market.

Harvey Roofing Products, which is a division of Macsteel, then embarked on a major programme, estimated to have cost over R40-million, to develop the production technology to produce the tiles on a commercially sustainable basis. It has made considerable resources and manpower available. (Harvey already offers a wide range of roofing products, with the EcoTile being the most recently introduced.)

At the Western Cape launch, on a Stellenbosch wine farm on Friday 26 April, attended by a good turnout of the region’s roofing specialists and suppliers, Macsteel group CEO Mike Benfield emphasised the group’s commitment to innovation and sustainability. What he neglected to mention was that his neck was on the line.

But the fundamentals are good: the tile is a practical and durable product which will very conceivably perform better than concrete tiles used to date: it does not require painting, is virtually shatter and hail proof, has an interlocking design which performs exceptionally well in extreme weather conditions; is self-extinguishing in the event of fire; does not corrode in coastal areas; is UV stable; and its ridge assembly does not require additional cement or bonding agents. And it is lighter (weighs in at just over 15kg per square metre compared to 49kg/m² for the concrete version), so transport of the tiles (which, make no mistake, are relatively heavy) is considerably easier than with concrete.

And besides that, it’s a good time to introduce a new roof tile in South Africa: the design of the new tile is both solar and geyser compatitible, making rooftop mounting for these systems easier.

Development journey
Frikkie Erasmus and Albie Jordaan, CEO and GM respectively of Harvey Roof Tiles, may have at first thought, ‘How complicated can this be?’ Well, they soon found out. Prior to this undertaking, and possibly even in known history, the manufacture of roof tiles was relatively straightforward. The process has been going on for a loooonnnnnggg time. Let’s say, as far as this part of the world is concerned, to the Egyptians and Greeks and Romans. Roof tiles were mostly cast in clay and kiln or even sun-dried back then … but to do so using scrap material is an altogether different undertaking.

What seems to have happened in the set-up of this project is that the planners were able to source relatively cheaper input materials (in the form of recycled HD and PP) but then went completely over-budget on the production equipment. The problem was quite simple: the manufacturer of the extrusion line had never dealt with such input materials. How, for instance, would you get recycled polyolefin material mixed with mineral mining scrap in powder from to blend and flow through the barrel? No-one had the answer.

But now, some four years later, Harvey Roofing Products has produced an answer. Its system, using a large Giant extruder supplied by Maritime Marketing, rHD and rPP from Nelka of Pretoria and mineral scrap from an as yet unnamed mine, has been tweaked to the point where it is able to produce up to 30,000 tiles a day.

At the project rate, it will process as much as 4,000 tons of recycled plastic a year and about 8,500 tons of the mining mineral scrap, which are considerable volumes.

The launch
In light of recent violent windstorms, attendees at the event had the opportunity to explore the advanced fixing and interlocking features of the Harvey EcoTile, specially engineered and tested to withstand extreme weather conditions prevalent in the Western Cape. Questions (of which there were a lot) regarding the tile’s corrosion resistance, UV protection and its potential for savings on roof structure and breakages were addressed, highlighting its suitability for coastal areas.

Plastic pollution is a topic firmly in the global spotlight, with the devastating impact waste plastic has on our rivers, oceans and the environment in general. The Harvey team described how Harvey EcoTile is entirely manufactured from waste material. Approximately 30% of the product consists of recycled plastic, the equivalent of four 2-litre plastic milk bottles per roof tile. At full production capacity, Harvey EcoTile will remove the equivalent of 32 million bottles a year from the environment.

Furthermore, the EcoTile stands out as a waterless product, requiring no water in its production process. This contrasts sharply with concrete roof tiles, which typically demand up to 20% of their weight in water during manufacturing.