South Africa is drowning in waste, warns the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA). The statistical facts compiled in 2017 and published by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) reveal that the approximately 57 million inhabitants produce about 54.2 million tonnes of waste per annum. This equates to up to 2.5 kilograms per person daily, depending on income. A maximum of 10 per cent is recycled or used for other purposes. At least 90 per cent at best end up in a dump or, ever more often, are simply thrown away anywhere in the surroundings.
Bad job prospects.
A total of 60 per cent of all South Africans live in urban areas. They want to be near the towns to improve their chances of finding work. This has a questionable effect: In the KwaZulu-Natal province on the East coast of South Africa, for example, more than 40 per cent of the population are jobless according to official statistics from spring 2019. This number is made up by the officially reported 25.1 per cent of unemployed people and the many thousands of others who have given up looking for work and, therefore, are no longer registered by the authorities.
Self-employed, but official.
It is against this background that the wastepreneurs movement emerged. They are “self-employed” collectors of waste who register themselves officially as such. In return, a special identity card is issued to them and they wear a light-green jacket and a cap. Apart from their function as “official” waste collectors, they support the local security companies. While constantly touring the suburban roads, they keep their eyes and ears open to contribute to everybody’s security.
Business model gains momentum.
The wastepreneurs have meanwhile spread all over South Africa. In the KwaZulu-Natal region, they are supported by Wildlands. This South African NGO relies on a network of 60 communities in six provinces and initiated the project Recycling for life to assist the wastepreneurs. It focuses on supporting communities and individual persons to enhance their living environment by collecting waste in and around their quarters to get it recycled, for example, in Cato Crest, a small part of town in an outer district to the west of Durban. The Umkhumbane river flows through the settlement, joins the Umbilo and runs into the ocean. The land on both sides of the river in Cato Crest is scattered with plastic and glass. When heavy rainfall and flooding raise the water level of the Umkhumbane, it carries all the rubbish along and flushes it into the sea.
Dreams are fulfilled.
Mrs Sindisiwe Sebotsa fights this. She has been acting as a wastepreneur in her area since October 2017 and busily collects plastic bottles and other recyclable materials. Thanks to the recycling point set up by the NGO Wildlands in the centre of Cato Crest, she collected more than 4000 kilos of valuable raw materials for the recycling trade within one year. Sindisiwe Sebotsa and her colleagues collect more than 1.2 million kilos of waste in Cato Crest every year, much to the delight of wastepreneur Sebotsa. Her intervention for the benefit of the environment earned her enough money to build two tiny houses in her backyard, which she now lets. The resulting income and what she earns from Recycling for life made one of her long-held dreams come true: she got her driving licence.
Model knows only winners.
The wastepreneurs and accompanying initiatives such as Recycling for life are shining examples of how the problems of environmental pollution with plastics and other packaging products can be coped with in a sustainable manner. It is a wonderful win-win-win situation that entrepreneurship is encouraged, unemployment and poverty fought and valuable raw materials gained for recycling. As a welcome side effect, people are made aware of the recycling economy, and this in turn improves their responsibility in the medium term.
