Camatic unveils world’s first recycled plastic stadium seat

Victorian-based seating manufacturer Camatic has today unveiled the world’s first recycled plastic stadium seat at the SportNXT global sport summit in Melbourne.

Camatic, which has previously installed seating at Wimbledon in the UK, SoFi Stadium (home of the LA Rams and Chargers) and Allegiant Stadium (home of the LA Raiders), the Queensland Country Ban Stadium and the new Allianz Stadium in Sydney, has released the new seat ahead of a major export program that will see the ‘sustainable seats’ installed in leading sporting venues around the world.

The manufacturing process uses polypropylene, a common household plastic used for ice cream and yogurt tubs – with each seat using about 3 kilograms of the material (around 40 tubs).

This sees every seat divert waste from landfill and other waste stream and, for example, a stadium with 30,000 recycled seats would save more than 90 metric tonnes of waste from landfill.

Using recycled plastic does not compromise the seat’s performance, with each seat capable of accommodating a weight of up to 450 kilograms.

In addition to its current installations, Camatic is confident that it will see its recycled plastic seat used in venues during Australia’s ‘green and gold’ decade of sporting events.

Camatic Managing Director, Kirk Edwards explains “we’ve had early conversations with the Victorian Government explaining the many benefits of using our company as we manufacture locally, we are trying to protect Victorian jobs and, more importantly, we can provide a solution that assists the landfill, assists the environment, assists the sustainability of Victoria as a whole.

“Our message to the Victorian Government is very simple - it should be manufactured here and it should be manufactured with plastics that have reached the end of life.”

Edwards is mindful that in other markets, different recycled plastics might be used, added “when we go around the world and have presented this to different people, the first thing they have said is ‘we're not taking Victorian waste, we want to use waste from our own provinces or countries.

“So for Queensland, it'd probably come down to using Queensland waste, and we'll definitely have our tools up there, and hopefully we can have dialogue with the Queensland Government around providing a similar solution for the Olympics.”

For over 55 years, Australian owned and operated Camatic Seating has been a leader in the design, manufacture and installation of ergonomic seating solutions for stadiums, arenas, cinemas, theatres, educational institutions and transit areas around the world.

Click here to contact Camatic Seating via their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory.

Images: Camatic's new recycled plastic stadium seat launched at the SportNXT sport summit by Camatic Managing Director, Kirk Edwards (left) and television personality and SportNXT Chair, Eddie McGuire.