The City of Cape Town’s Solid Waste Department scooped first place in the Local Authority Recycling Initiative category at the PETCO (PET Recycling Company NPC) Awards on Monday 1 March. One of the City’s recycling partnership projects also won the award for Recycling Partnership Game-changer.
The City’s ongoing efforts to implement innovative initiatives to miminise waste have been recognised at the PETCO Awards, as have the strides made by the City’s recycling partnerships.
The PETCO Awards is a premier industry-driven national environmental awards initiative, recognising excellence in reuse, recycling and waste minimisation among businesses, organisations, community groups and individuals within the South African PET (Polyethylene Terephthalate) plastic industry. PETCO announced their winners in an online campaign this week.
The City jointly received first place in the Local Authority Recycling Initiative category with the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Land and Environmental Affairs in Mpumalanga.
The following are some of the initiatives and services that are being actioned, which were highlighted in the City’s award nomination:
- Mobile ‘Swop Shop’ Trial: A dedicated trailer sets up shop in an area, and residents are encouraged to bring recyclables, in exchange for tokens that are redeemable for items in the swop shop, such as pantry goods and stationery. The programme was piloted over a five month period in Delft, Khayelitsha, Bloekombos and Ysterplaat, following research and community engagement to understand residents’ needs. While the swop shop trial was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the reception by communities was encouraging, with approximately six tons of recyclables per month swopped in the first one-and-a-half months, increasing to 30 tons per month in the final three months of the trial, which continued after the first lockdown. The City is continually researching alternative separation at source initiatives, guided by dialogue with communities.
- Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs): The City built a substantial MRF in Kraaifontein, where our service provider partners sort clean recyclables for the recycling markets. This ‘separation at source’ facility currently processes recyclables collected from a catchment area of 50 000 to 60 000 households, as well as some of the recyclables from the City’s remaining ‘Think Twice’ separation at source contracts. These contracts service a total of more than 180 000 households, and this will increase as additional MRFs are constructed. One such MRF is planned at the Coastal Park landfill site, and once complete, the two facilities will enable a minimum of 150 tons of recyclable waste diverted from landfill, every day.
- 27 City waste drop-off sites: Residents are encouraged to bring their household recyclables to any of the 27 drop-off facilities, which are then sorted and sold on to the recycling markets by our SMME service provider partners. The facilities are open to the public daily (except for selected public holidays), and residents make use of them free of charge. Approximately 400 tons of recyclables per month are diverted from landfill through these facilities.
- Partnerships, both direct and indirect, with service providers and organisations form a key aspect to the overall drive to minimise waste in Cape Town. Examples of such partnerships include:
- Working closely with GreenCape on a number of programmes, through networking and financial partnerships and joint working relationships. One of these is the City-funded Western Cape Industrial Symbiosis Programme, WISP, where industry stakeholders are invited to ‘speed dating’ waste exchange events, and waste exchanges are later facilitated between different industries, with the help of the GreenCape facilitators.
- Partnering with the Packa-Ching mobile buy back centre programme managed by Polyco. This was done in terms of networking, as well as facilitating the use of plots of open City land, where the Packa-Ching trailer can park to provide its services to the residents.
- Indirectly partnering with the SMME recycling collection, drop-off and buy back centre industry as well, by developing the City’s waste recyclers map. This tool, on the City’s website, allows residents and businesses to search for private recycling collectors, drop-off sites and buy-back centres in their suburb or area.
- Continuing networking partnerships with the Producer Responsibility Organisations, the Institute of Waste Management of SA and various other key organisations in the waste minimisation arena.
Also, the Green Up Project won PETCO’s Recycling Partnership Game-changer Award. This project is an example of a City partnership, jointly coordinated by the City, the Western Cape Provincial Government and an industry stakeholder, which was independently nominated and won the PETCO award for Recycling Partnership Game-changer. This tri-partite partnership, launched in June 2019, empowers local waste reclaimers in various communities via entrepreneurship development towards greater prosperity through recycling.
Currently the project operates in Khayelitsha, Ramaphosa in Philippi and Drifsands, focussing on local women, and plans to rollout to additional areas in future, as it has potential to transform these communities through dedicated women minimising waste and supporting their families.
‘It’s a huge honour to receive this level of recognition by PETCO. The teams within the Solid Waste department, who have worked so consistently to establish innovative programs that minimise waste in our city, are to be commended and congratulated for their achievement.
‘The cumulative volumes of waste diverted from landfill are their own reward, but it is wonderful to be officially recognised by such respected stakeholders and industry partners. The range of programs and interventions in place demonstrate the genuine care and commitment within the department to driving down waste, with benefits to the environment, the economy, and communities.
‘The awards affirm the City’s commitment to diverting waste from landfill and exploring waste minimisation solutions that work for communities.
‘Each one of us has a responsibility to make mindful decisions about the waste we generate in our daily lives, and while we do see evidence of increased waste awareness in our society, there is still a long way to go towards sustainability. It’s important to remember that recycling is not a silver bullet solution to the waste problem, but a way of managing it. All efforts recognised by PETCO this week deserve thanks and congratulations for the work they are doing.
‘The City would like to congratulate all the national winners, especially those in Cape Town who won awards, showing that many stakeholders are working together towards a circular economy in Cape Town,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Water and Waste, Alderman Xanthea Limberg.