Informal waste sector active
THE Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has undertaken research for the Green Fund to evaluate waste and recycling cooperatives to understand the opportunities and constraints facing waste co-operative implementation in South Africa.
The Fund is managed by the Development Bank of South Africa on behalf of Department of Environmental Affairs. The waste sector can contribute towards addressing South Africa’s unemployment challenges.
The informal waste sector in South Africa has been active for more than two decades and plays an important role in diverting recyclables away from landfills. However, CSIR research shows that the sector is marginalised and operates at the fringe of municipal solid waste management systems. In efforts to create sustainable, thriving cooperatives, the public and private sectors need to collaborate to boost cooperative development in the waste sector.
“We have all seen the trolley pushers on our roads,” says CSIR principal researcher, Dr Linda Godfrey, referring to the informal waste pickers collecting waste from kerbsides. “There are an estimated 60 000 – 90 000 informal waste pickers earning a livelihood from the collection and sorting of recyclables in South Africa. Working on landfill sites and at kerbsides, these informal waste pickers collect approximately 80 – 90% of all post-consumer paper and packaging recyclables in the country, saving municipalities R750 million in landfill airspace per annum, at little to no cost.”
One of the ways to integrate the informal waste sector into the formal waste economy, is formalisation through the establishment of co-operatives,
explains Godfrey. Co-operatives are jointly owned enterprises operated by its members for their mutual benefit. “But we found that co- operatives, not only waste and recycling co-operatives, have a very high failure rate in South Africa.”
Waste co-operatives in South Africa face numerous challenges in their day-to-day duties, including lack of infrastructure such as transport, equipment and premises to sort and safely store their collected waste, as well as lack of capacity for training and acquiring knowledge and skills.
She explains: “What we found is that while training is necessary, it is often insufficient. What co-operatives need to become sustainable is incubation and mentoring, but this comes at a significant cost.”
Godfrey believes that co-operatives require longterm support and investment from all relevant role-players in the sector, as they have the potential to create a significant number of direct and indirect income opportunities. Amalgamated Beverage Industries (ABI) employed this model with recycling SMMEs, with good result in terms of profitability and productivity. Consequently, the CSIR partnered with ABI to discuss integrating the informal sector and SMMEs into municipal solid waste management in South Africa. The CSIR provided insight on potential solutions to waste management challenges in South Africa. “The waste sector can definitely support low-skilled workers and also provide wonderful opportunities to deal with waste as a secondary resource,” says Godfrey.
The waste sector can contribute towards addressing South Africa’s unemployment challenges through creating large numbers of low-skill jobs to address current challenges, while at the same time developing new enterprises that will require new types of skills.
The CSIR’s support for SMME development in the waste sector is linked to the Department of Science and Technology’s Waste, Research, Development and Innovation Roadmap. “The CSIR, through the Waste RDI Roadmap Implementation Unit, manages a portfolio on waste research development and innovation on behalf of the DST.
Essentially it focuses on growing the investment and capability in waste research and development in South Africa.”
The Department’s “TenYear innovation Plan: Towards a knowledge-based economy” recognises the importance of science and technology in improving the country’s competitive-ness and economic growth.
The waste sector is recognised by government as one that provides opportunities for value recovery, job creation and economic development.
The Roadmap has been developed to provide strategic direction and to co-ordinate and manage South Africa’s portfolio of investment for the next 10 years in six identified clusters of waste research, development and innovation activities, including strategic planning, modelling and analytics, technology solutions, waste logistics performance, waste and environment, and waste and society.