Petco honours innovative recycling companies
ECO-WARRIORS from across the Cape gathered at the South African PET Recycling Company (Petco) annual meeting last week to award recyclers for doing extraordinary community upliftment.
The annual awards, which recognises projects that address social needs through recycling, dished out a number of awards in various categories and the company that snagged the public campaign of the year award went to the EcoBrick Exchange.
The EcoBrick Exchange, which was founded by architect Ian Dommissee, is an environmental awareness project that facilitates the construction of preschools in underprivileged communities using bricks made of unrecyclable plastic waste.
The bricks are created by compressing plastic into two-litre bottles, which creates a highly insulated building material that is water and fireproof. This project was acknowledged by Petco for assisting the reduction of reliance on landfills.
Another winner who took the award for the best digital technology supporting recycling was Chad Robertson, who co-founded Regenize.
Regenize is a recycle-tech company that focuses on creating a recycling culture in SA by rewarding people for recycling with a virtual currency called Remali.
The app allows recyclers to earn Remali, which means recycled money, and pays users an amount based on the weight of their recyclables. They can then shop on Regenize’s online voucher platform to buy vouchers ranging from small electronics and groceries to clothing and airtime.
Robertson said the company is honoured for having their hard work recognised and wanta to do more to improve the culture of recycling in SA. “It gives us a sense of accomplishment to show that our hard work is being recognised as a team. We’re in the initial steps of where we want to go.
“We want to improve the recycling culture in SA by developing a solution to get everyone recycling and we have some new pilot projects we’re working on.” The company who received the award for the recycling innovator of the year was Chris Els from Kaytech in Atlantis, which is the leading geotextile manufacturer in SA.
The company produces materials from recycled bottles and has improved their recycling technology, which was recognised. The winner who took the award for media spotlight went to Marli Meyer, whose entry into the Petco Media Spotlight awards stood out as having made a contribution to the awareness and understanding of waste reduction and recycling.