Why National Highways recognition changes everything for sustainable infrastructure
14th May 2026
By Phil Sutton, Founder of Duraproducts
For more than a decade, we’ve been making the same argument that recycled polymer kerbs perform as well as concrete, they’re lighter, they’re greener, and they close the loop on household plastic waste. But since we started in 2003, we’ve watched the same thing happen – architects and procurement teams nod in agreement, express interest, until someone in the room says: “But is it in the specification?”
It wasn’t. Until now.
The updated BBA HAPAS certification for Durakerb, aligned to the National Highways Manual of Contract Documents for Highways Works (MCHW), means that polymer kerbs are now formally listed within national specifications. That sentence might sound dry. But for anyone who has spent time trying to get sustainable materials adopted in UK infrastructure, it represents something much bigger.
UK highways procurement is conservative by design. It has to be. Roads are public assets that need to last decades, and the engineers and contractors responsible for them operate within tightly defined standards. Deviation from those standards, even for a product with excellent independent test data, introduces risk. Legal risk, procurement risk, reputational risk. For a sector where margins are tight and accountability is high, risk avoidance is fair game.
The result is a bias toward the traditional and familiar. Concrete kerbs are in the spec. They’ve been in the spec for generations. They’re carbon-intensive, heavy, and manufactured from virgin materials, but they’re approved and operationally risk free.
Sustainable alternatives, however well-tested, had to jump through additional hoops and paperwork every single time. Bespoke testing. Custom approvals. One-off justifications. The burden sat entirely with the people trying to do the right thing.
But, that’s changed.
Credit should go to National Highways for taking this step. The update to the MCHW, formally listing polymer kerbs within national specifications, marks change. It removes a long-standing barrier and enables innovation, rather than resisting it.
With polymer kerbs formally recognised in national specifications, a local authority or Tier 1 contractor can specify Durakerb without any of that additional overhead. No custom testing cycle. No extra approval process. The product is already validated independently, nationally and officially. It is now a procurement decision that takes minutes, not weeks or months.
The scale of what this unlocks is hard to exaggerate. The UK’s highway network spans hundreds of thousands of kilometres. Kerbing is a component of virtually every new road scheme or development, every resurfacing project, every junction upgrade. If even a fraction of those projects move from concrete to recycled polymer kerbing, the impact on carbon, waste, and the wider circular economy is huge. Durakerb is made from 88% recycled polymer and it’s fully recyclable at end of life.
None of this has happened overnight. And the choice of polymer over concrete won’t happen overnight either. Change at this level is celebrating incremental wins. But the barrier that has consistently stalled that change has been lifted.
But this is how real change happens in infrastructure. Not through pledges or commitments, but through standards. Through the slow, unglamorous work of getting something written into a document that contractors, councils, and architects all use on a daily basis.
It’s in the document now. Watch this space.