Focus on liquid packaging material
The difference during this year’s National Clean-up and Recycle Week – September 10 to 16 – is the message that South Africa is evolving as it tends to focus more on greater recovery of materials and liquid packaging material, says Mpact Recycling.
Mpact has also identified the need to find more sustainable solutions to reduce the “detrimental impact to the environment”, which is a greater focus on liquid packaging materials.
During a media tour yesterday at their Springs paper mill, Mpact’s pulp mill manager Godfrey Zwane said: “These machines [used for recycling] have been here for a very long time but only [two to three years back] did we start recycling the liquid packaging material.
“In South Africa, we’re at about 70% rate of recovery but with the liquid packaging itself, it is only 10% that we are recovering and what is important for us is to increase that recovery rate.”
He added that liquid cartoons, paper cups and thin bags like charcoal bags were mostly their targeted material for recycling.
The collection of recyclable paper reduces the amount of waste to landfill, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This is the biggest crisis we sit with in South Africa – the fact that we are running out of landfill space on a daily basis, said Mpact managing director John Hunt.