Collect-a-Can, a pioneer of corporate environmental best practice in South Africa, celebrated its 10th anniversary in April this year.
Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa commended the company on its efforts to increase public awareness about the importance of waste management.
‘Not only has this project seen a dramatic reduction of waste from used beverage cans throughout the country, but it has also in the process empowered thousands of South Africans who sell the cans to collection points,” he said.
Collect-a-Can was set up in 1993 by Iscor — which makes the steel used for the manufacture of beverage cans — Bevcan, a division of Nampak, and Crown Cork.
The three companies joined forces to set up the recycling scheme as a result of growing concerns in the early 1990s about the effects of CFC aerosol propellants on the environment, an international focus on the impact of packaging on the environment and the concern about this potentially spilling over to steel cans.
Although Collect-a-Can recovers all forms of used steel packaging and also off-cuts of virgin material from which cans are manufactured, it focuses mainly on steel beverage can recovery.
This is to ensure that the cans’ contribution to litter diminishes. An important aspect of this is creating awareness that beverage cans are 100% recyclable.
In an attempt to empower local communities and individuals who recycle the cans, Collect-a-Can is a non-profit company.
By April more than 37 000 people were earning or supplementing their income through can recoveries and Collect-a-Can had paid more than R270-million to collectors.