Not for profit award, winner: Collect-a-Can
Ever thought about what happens to your can when you have finished your cold drink?
That is where South Africa’s foremost recycler, Collect-a-Can, steps in. For the past 17 years the organisation has been dedicated to getting people to collect their cans.
The initiative is a joint venture between ArcelorMittal South Africa, a major producer of steel and tinplate for food and beverage cans, and Nampak, Africa’s largest packaging company and beverage can producer.
Between 1993 and 2006, 750 000 tonnes of used beverage cans were recovered in South Africa. Collect-a-Can supports recycling initiatives in communities and has a strong commitment to socioeconomic empowerment.
The organisation recovers all scrap tinplate generated in the tinplate and can-making processes, including sludge, cut-off s (skeletons), misprints and sub-standard fills and, most importantly, used cans.
All recovered scrap and used cans are either processed to add value (detinning and briquetting) or prepared and sold for recycling. Collect-a-Can’s operations are driven by recovery rather than profit, but it aims to be self-sustainable.
The company has had an incredible impact by teaching children from a young age about recycling and good waste habits, said Annie Tsima, managing director of Collect-a-Can. ‘We will continue to maximise our relationship with schools and learners and will look at ways to build and enhance this initiative to get even more schools involved in the future,” she said.
Collect-a-Can’s schools competition has been running since 1993 with an average of one million learners participating annually. Through the schools competition , Collect-a-Can aims to teach learners to be sensitive, informed and aware of the importance of recycling for the environment and to demonstrate the economic benefits of recycling.
Approximately 350 schools registered for the competition last year. At the end of last year Collect a Can also announced a 72% recovery rate, which puts Southern Africa in the world’s top five and makes Collect-a-Can the most successful operation of its kind in the world.
‘This is a phenomenal feat, especially in the current economic crunch. Collect-a-Can will strive to maintain this recovery rate,” said Tsima. ‘While this is a new environment for me, I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead and am very positive about the future,” she said.
Collect-a-Can and the Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association of South Africa (AMA) recently handed over safety gear to representatives of recycling collectors at the Goudkoppies municipal landfill site in Devland, south of Johannesburg.
AMA donated specialised collection bags, face masks and rubber gloves that will be distributed to an estimated 2 000 collectors (or pickers) at the landfill site. ‘The AMA was founded in 1963,” Mike Naude, AMA spokesperson, said. ‘We recently formed a sustainability committee to focus on accountability in the areas of manufacturing, marketplace, social and environmental responsibility.”
He said the decision was made to approach Collect-a-Can to assist them to minimise the impact of aerosol cans on the environment by ensuring that as many as possible were reclaimed after they had been used and recycled.
‘At inception Collect-a-Can focused on collecting only beverage cans,” Tsima said, ‘but over the years the organisation has moved into collecting all used cans, such as aerosol, food, paint and oil cans.” She said what made Collect-a-Can different from other recycling companies was that the focus was on both the collection and recycling of used cans.
‘With the world turning to a ‘greener’ focus, companies and organisations are increasingly expected to be environmentally responsible in the way that they conduct their operations and businesses,” she said.
There is currently little infrastructure in place for household waste separation at source and the majority of used aerosol cans end up in landfills, despite these cans being entirely recyclable.
Pickers earn a livelihood by sorting manuallly through the landfill sites to retrieve recyclable items that are then sold to companies such as Collect-a-Can. An estimated 32 000 tons of waste is processed by the Goudkoppies landfill site a month.
But working with the waste can pose health and safety hazards for the pickers, hence the association’s decision to donate the safety gear. They were delighted with the donation.
‘We have been praying for help and now our prayers have been answered,” said Eddie Mudau, who spoke on behalf of the waste pickers.
Dumisani Buthelezi, a representative from the department of trade and industry environmental directorate who attended the event, said: ‘It is a step in the right direction to see the waste pickers, their representatives and industry bodies such as the AMA and Collect-a-Can all together under one roof like this.
‘There are a lot of job opportunities and new industries arising from the waste management and recycling industry and by getting the right people together, focused on the same goals, it can only lead to a positive outcome. ‘The Recycling Industry Body has been established to promote initiatives of this nature,” Buthelezi said.