Clean-Up & Recycle SA Week, which was hosted by the plastics industry umbrella body Plastics SA, from September 14 to September 20, aligns with the organisation’s recycling campaigns to promote a circular economy in which plastic is recycled at the source of disposal for reprocessing.

Plastics SA distributed 500 000 yellow clean-up bags to coordinators around the country so that volunteers could participate in the National River Clean-Up Day on September 16, National Recycling Day on September 18, International Coastal Clean-Up on September 19 and World Clean-Up Day on September 20.

These initiatives also support compliance with an important South African circular-economy milestone, whereby plastic carrier and flat bag manufacturers will be required to make plastic bags using 100% post-consumer recyclate by 2027, adds Plastics SA executive director Anton Hanekom.

“This is important because collection alone does not create circularity – reprocessors need reliable end-markets for the material they produce.”

While it has the technical capabilities and technologies to produce packaging from post-consumer recyclate, South Africa must facilitate better plastic collection for recycling purposes, with people and companies collaborating to deliver uncontaminated plastic packaging to reprocessing facilities.

“The challenge is, therefore, to connect the entire system: design it to be recyclable, collect it, sort it correctly, reprocess it efficiently, and, critically, create a market that uses that recyclate for the creation of new products,” he explains.

Nonetheless, Hanekom notes that there have been positive advances of late.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the leading example in South Africa because established reprocessing and decontamination technologies allow for post-consumer PET to be reprocessed into material suitable for direct food-contact applications, such as bottles, jars and thermoformed punnets and trays, he adds.

Hanekom says that recycled PET, or rPET, capacity is going a long way to increase the recycled content in rigid packaging in general.

Circular Plastics Economy

Hanekom says Plastics SA focuses on upstream initiatives, such as “design-for-circularity” principles and encouraging brand owners, retailers and plastic packaging manufacturers to consider the full life cycle of packaging.

The industry association also advocates for the separation of materials at source or during the collection process to reduce contamination from wet or organic waste, for optimised recycling and reprocessing.

Plastics SA collects and publishes industry data on a yearly basis to keep track of the trends in the recycling value chain. This information allows collectors, buyback centres and reprocessors to benchmark themselves against peers.

Hanekom adds that the organisation also focuses on downstream initiatives, such as promoting the use of recyclate in locally manufactured products, as this will create demand and, in turn, promote a sustainable reprocessing industry and encourage the adoption of circular-economy measures.

It has also launched the Plastics Matter discussion platform, an endeavour that includes engagement with the South African Local Government Association to discuss municipal waste management issues.

“Government, municipalities, industry, reprocessors and communities must work together if we are going to fix the gaps in the system . . . South Africa can collect and reprocess increasing quantities of plastic, but circularity ultimately depends on creating sustained demand for secondary raw materials.”

He concludes that supporting locally manufactured products containing locally recovered plastic strengthens the reprocessing industry and provides markets for collectors and waste reclaimers, thereby supporting local manufacturing activity and job creation while reducing reliance on virgin raw materials.