In 2019, not less than 62% of all plastic bottles produced in South Africa were collected for recycling – 2% down from 2018, according to latest statistics from the PET Recycling Company (PETCO), the sector’s non-profit producer responsibility organisation.
Despite global market contractions and impact of Covid-19, South Africa’s PET plastic recycling value chain has kept ‘its wheels turning’, says PETCO, delivering ‘another positive annual recycling rate while creating thousands of jobs for informal reclaimers who returned to work under level three of the national lockdown’.
Last year, almost 96 000 tonnes of post-consumer PET bottles were collected, ‘which would otherwise have occupied 594 000 cubic metres of landfill space and produced 144 000 tonnes of carbon emissions, says PETCO. Apart from these environmental benefits, PET recycling generated 66 000 paid jobs among informal collectors and small businesses, with EUR 60 million injected into the downstream economy via the manufacturing, distribution and sale of products made from rPET, it is stressed.
On a positive note, Scholtz said the tonnage of rPET sold in South Africa – close to 24 000 tonnes – was similar to 2018, reflecting both the improving output at the remaining recyclers, as well as the increasing demand for rPET. ‘Light-weighting, or not using more material than is necessary, is an important environmental step but our challenge is to encourage right-weighting, which is about finding the balance within the circular economy.’
Source: Recycling International
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