Very few people object to recycling. In addition to the environmental benefits, companies are starting to see economic value in driving recycling initiatives. There is significant scope in South Africa to be more efficient in recycling and potentially do so in a more economically lucrative way.
In the lead up to next week’s 17th Conference of parties (Cop 17) taking place in Durban, the Mail& Guardian Critical Thinking Forum held on Tuesday, 22 November took a closer look at the potential recycling has in changing the South African economy.
“In order to preserve the local economy, South Africans need to recycle. This drive extends to organisations that need to recycle on a daily basis. You can clearly see the impact of waste on the country from environmental and economical per-spectives,” says Zandile Mpungose, executive for legal environment, compliance, and safety at pikitup. It is this impact that is driving certain organisations to rethink how they approach recycling from a strategic perspective and what they can do to contribute to a more sustainable environment while minimising the risk to financial performance.
Reduce, re-use, recycle
“ABI has a framework of reduce, re-use, and recycle. As part of this framework, we have been driving a lightweight programme to reduce the weight of our bottles which is now the lightest in the world,” says JP Blumenthal, technical manager at ABI. He says that ABI has set itself a goal of recycling all the internal waste of the organisation. And with the soft drink division currently sitting at 80 percent, it seems a noble goal to have.
However, a key part of this is to ensure that staff is informed about recycling and its impact. “We have 3 800 staff and we have to educate them. our employees reach 17,000 people in their immediate vicinity who they have contact with. The ripple effect of internal education cannot be under- estimated. We are also trialling recycling centres to see the value these centres can offer various communities,” says Blumenthal.
Involving business
Casper Durandt, technical manager at Coca-Cola South Africa, feels that the introduction of recycled content doing things by local organisations. “We are working with regulatory bodies to ensure that the right material is introduced into our bottles. We collect in excess of 40,000 tons of material in South Africa which is mainly used for fibre recycling. We take recycling very seriously,”
Durandt says.
And to proof his point, Durandt to Coca-Cola bottles in South Africa in the next few years could also help contribute to a changing way of highlighted how Coca-Cola South Africa funds recycling organisations such as PET Recycling Company and how it works to fund other initiatives that help with recycling. “We have already seen PET recycling grow from a few hundred tonnes in 2000 to 42 percent this year. The base of PET bottles used in South Africa has grown phenomenally,” he says.
Creating awareness
It is this investment that has assisted PET Recycling Company to help drive awareness of the importance of recycling and what materials need to be recycling by consumers. “We have created value for the PET bottle by making people aware that plastic bottles are not trash but can be recycled. With South Africa being one of the fastest urbanising areas in the world and many of our cities not being densely populated, transport issues are a key concern especially when it comes to the important role recycling has to play,” says Cheri Scholtz, chief executive at PET Recycling Company.
She estimates that it took 23,000 people last year to collect the PET bottles used for recycling. Even so, 84 percent of bottles for recycling are received from landfills. With PET bottles getting graded according to its quality and colour, recycling collectors can identify the most valuable items. These collectors sell the bottles to brokers who have access to electricity and other solutions to complete the recycling value chain. “This value chain sees us doing whatever we can to make sure that the value of the bottle touches on all the levels of those involved in the recycling process,” says Scholtz.
Consumer driver
For Coca-Cola’s Durandt, it is also taking into account consumer needs versus what is needed to be done from a recycling point of view. “An example of this is our consumers who have indicated that they enjoy drinking a certain brand of cold drink from a brown bottle. These bottles are not highly prized when it comes to recycling so we are taking a bit of a knock there. However, when there was a proposal last year to launch a multi-coloured bottle during the World Cup, we pushed back due to concerns about the recycling quality of the bottles. There is therefore a fine balance we try and maintain,” he says.
Pikitup’s Mpungose feels that a carrot and stick approach is required when dealing with consumers and recycling. “Consumer education in communities and schools are important. We also have the law supporting us through the National Waste Act which makes it law for people to recycle. Soon there will be bylaws that give us the right to enforce recycling,” says Mpungose. She says that already pikitup has implemented trials in several areas including Sunninghill, Paulshof, Kensington, and Lenasia where people are encouraged to organise their waste to avoid the contamination of recyclable materials. “From when we started in November 2009 to where we are now, we have 20 percent of the communities participating in the trial. But we have to be consistent in our approach as residents get discouraged if we do things irregularly,” she says.
Doing it right
From a business perspective, recycling does help in certain targets but it is not the ultimate driver. “We are not using only economic drives to drive recycling. For SAB Miller, it is not a case of whether we should recycle but instead one of how we recycle. The will and the intent are there from our side even if there is no immediate economic payback,” says SAB Miller’s Blumenthal.
Coca-Cola’s Durandt feels the growing demand for products could actually help with recycling initiatives. “With the spotlight being on companies to show how they recycle and what they are doing for sustainability, people are focusing on how organisations address their carbon footprint. From our side we have reduced the weight of our bottles; we are re-using containers, and we are actively recycling. We monitor our carbon activities very closely and tackle the problem head on,” he says. He goes on to say that Coca-Cola’s products are 100 percent recyclable. The company has removed various inks and specific types of labels that are not recyclable.
Pikitup’s Mpungose says that such initiatives help to make their jobs easier when it comes to managing landfills. “We believe that there could be value in landfills. Currently, we are looking at extracting gas from land- fills and converting that into electricity which can be put back into the grid. We are busy discussing this with the Department of Minerals and Energy with the project potentially being up and running within the next three to four years,’ she says.
Pikitup has 42 sites with two new centres opening soon. Of those, 20 accept all recyclable material with the organisation planning to convert two sites at a time with additional recycling options. Initiatives like these impact down the value chain as PET Recycling Company’s Scholtz says that they are seeing people experiencing the benefits of recycling first-hand. “With people making money from recycling, we are starting to see a shift in consumer expectations when it comes to recycling. This bodes well for not only our future but also that of the environment for generations to come,” she concludes.
This article originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper as a sponsored feature
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