Gap Finders: Toby McCartney from MacRebur

Available for over a year

Toby McCartney has always had an entrepreneurial streak. As a schoolboy, he used to sell sweets his grandfather had given him to other kids in the yard - a venture so successful, it put the school tuck shop out of business and led to him being suspended. As a young man, he built websites and sold advertising space online. In 2016, together with friends Gordon Reid and Nick Burnett, Toby founded MacRebur - The Plastic Road Company. MacRebur is a world-first: road surfaces made from waste plastic. They take waste plastic destined for landfill and turn it into a polymer that can be added to asphalt to enhance road surfaces and potholes. With each km of road laid using their innovative product, the equivalent weight of 684,000 bottles or 1.8 million single-use plastic bags are used. To date, MacRebur has laid more than 100,000km of road with MacRebur product - that’s the equivalent of 200 million plastic bottles diverted from landfill. In today’s episode of Gap Finders, Winifred finds out what inspired the company and just how Toby McCartney went from leaving school with barely any qualifications, to heading up an award-winning construction company. PRESENTER: Winifred Robinson PRODUCER: James Leesley