After the success of the Green-up project where residents were trained to turn recyclables into a viable business, work has continued to formalise the informal recycling sector in Makhaza.

Alderman Grant Twigg, Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Waste Management attended a ceremony on Wednesday, 7 December 2022, to hand over certificates, branded containers and personal protective equipment (PPE) to 20 informal recyclers operating in the Makhaza area, who have recently completed training on turning their recycling activities into a viable and sustainable business.

The residents approached the City for assistance after the success of the Green-up project operating in the same area, asking if there was similar support available for their members. With new extended producer responsibility regulations in South Africa, where industries that produce waste are required to operate or contribute to schemes that reduce the waste burden on society, there are various ‘producer responsibility organisations’ that are looking to partner with the informal sector to increase the rate of recycling and other forms of waste minimisation in the country. One of these is PETCO, who indicated they had funding available to assist this group of residents in this case.

PETCO’s role in such municipal waste management partnership projects comes in the form of training, equipment and infrastructure support for waste pickers and buy-back centres. PETCO also provides training and skills development for municipal employees involved in the waste management sector. In this case, three days of training were provided as well as uniforms and PPE, and branded trolleys will be provided early next year.

‘The City is happy to be partnering with PETCO, and we are looking forward to working together on similar initiatives going forward. This project provides economic benefits and skills development to participants while helping to keep the area clean and diverting waste from landfill.

‘With the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility regulations, companies are looking for more ways to reduce their impact on the environment, either by redesigning products to be recyclable or otherwise by ensuring that recycling of their products and product packaging takes place. This is creating a lot of opportunities for job creation in the waste management sector, and the City is working to facilitate the growth of this sector wherever possible.

‘With this training and equipment, the participants in the project now have the tools and knowledge to make their business viable and sustainable in the longer term, ensuring they can continue helping with society’s waste challenges well into the future,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Urban Waste Management, Alderman Grant Twigg.

‘We at PETCO are acutely aware of the importance of informal collection systems in Cape Town. In many markets, they are responsible for collecting a significant portion of recyclables and packaging in particular. As such, we are constantly looking for ways to work with informal collection systems to both help increase collection and recycling rates, but also to improve the lives and working conditions of informal collectors. Currently, there are very few municipal separation-at-source collection systems, so we work with interested municipalities to establish collection projects and expand PETCO collection into new areas,’ said PETCO CEO, Cheri Scholtz.

This year so far, PETCO has conducted 28 training workshops for 1 357 waste pickers in eight provinces, and a further three accredited business training workshops.

Source: City Of Cape Town