July 2026 marks the launch of another ground-breaking product by one of Africa’s leading radial truck tyre recyclers – the Van Dyck PermaFlex® Acoustic Gym Tile.
Made at the company’s Hammarsdale facility and destined for both export markets and local use, this product is yet another innovation by Mathe Group, which has not only turned more than a million used truck tyres into mountains of rubber crumb, but re-engineered this into a host of pioneering products.
Mathe Group’s Hammarsdale facility is one of the largest dedicated truck-tyre recycling and secondary-processing plants on the African continent and is known for being a trailblazer when it comes to finding new uses for the end-of-life tyres that make their way through its gates. Unless recycled, these accumulate in landfills or on empty lots where they are both an environmental and health hazard.
The wide range of products manufactured in Hammarsdale by Mathe Group include outdoor rubber paving and floor tiles, livestock mats, artificial grass shock pads, ballistics materials that absorb sound and vibrations, rubber sole boards that go under the feet of scaffolding during construction and sound-absorbing acoustic treatments such as floor underlays and flooring cradles. These reduce echoes and sound transfer.
Mathe Group CEO, Dr Mehran Zarrebini, says that this latest product emerged from a clear market signal: South Africa’s rapid urbanisation has seen gyms increasingly located within mixed-use precincts where acoustic performance has become as important as durability.
“Drawing on Mathe Group’s recycled rubber manufacturing capability and Van Dyck’s established expertise in flooring design and acoustic underlays, our technical team set out to develop a single-product solution combining heavy-duty shock absorption, certified acoustic performance, and full recyclability. Development took approximately eight months from concept through in-house testing and accredited third-party acoustic certification,” he explains.
Here, too, the focus was on superior impact absorption, anti-slip textures, and noise reduction.
He notes that the PermaFlex® Acoustic Gym Tile represents a meaningful step way forward from conventional rubber gym tile in three respects:
- Acoustic performance: It delivers impact sound reduction of up to 30 decibels, directly addressing one of the most common complaints in mixed-use developments where fitness facilities are co-located with residential or office space.
- Shock absorption: At 30mm thickness, the tile is engineered to absorb the impact of dropped free weights and high-intensity training, protecting both the substrate and the user.
- Composition: The tile combines a recycled SBR rubber base with a recycled SBR top surface incorporating up to 30% TPV coloured granules, allowing for visual customisation and gym-branding finishes without compromising structural performance.
The PermaFlex® Acoustic Gym Tile is supplied as a modular interlocking tile measuring 500mm × 500mm × 30mm. It is best suited to continuous flooring application, typically large commercial gyms, and high-traffic studios.
The target market comprises commercial and franchise gym chains, boutique and speciality fitness studios (Crossfit, HIIT, Olympic lifting), hotel, residential estate, and corporate wellness facilities as well as mixed-use developments where noise transmission to adjoining tenants is a concern,.
However, Dr Zarrebini adds that the tiles are also ideal for premium home gym installations.
“Installation is by means of an integrated interlocking system and does not require adhesive. This significantly reduces installation time, eliminates the use of solvent-based bonding agents, and allows individual tiles to be lifted, replaced or relocated as required, an important consideration for operators in leased premises,” he adds.
Sustainability features go beyond the reuse of post-consumer truck tyre rubber. PermaFlex® carries the following sustainability credentials:
- 100% recycled rubber content in the structural base
- Global GreenTag® certification (GreenRate Level B)
- Manufacture under an ISO 9001 Quality Management System and a certified environmental management programme
“The Mathe Group facility processes a significant share of South Africa’s end-of-life truck tyre stream, and the PermaFlex® Acoustic Gym Tile is a direct expression of our commitment to converting that waste stream into high-value engineered products,” Dr Zarrebini adds.
Additional sustainability features such as the fact that no adhesives, solvents or VOC bonding chemistries are required at installation and the long service life and end-of-life recyclability, support a genuinely circular-economy model that appeals to sustainability credentials that are prioritised in Europe, the Middle East, and Australasia.
The Global GreenTag® standard (GreenRate Level B), is increasingly a prerequisite for specification in export markets.
When used in South Africa, he believes that the fact that this product is wholly locally produced will materially reduce the embedded carbon footprint relative to imported alternatives.
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Author: Shirley Williams from Shirley Williams Communications on behalf of Mathe Group.
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