Most of SA’s waste is still going to landfill sites instead of being recycled
However, there is a growing awareness of recycling, Mpact says, and South Africans ‘are taking action and making a concerted effort to do the right thing’
More than 80% of waste that could be recycled ends up in landfill sites, but SA is improving, packaging group Mpact says. "The environmental impact of recycling is enormous. According to the Department of Environmental Affairs’s South African Waste Information Centre, more than 19.2-million tonnes of general waste and one-million tonnes of hazardous waste went to SA’s 133 landfill sites in 2017," Mpact Recycling MD John Hunt said in a media release on Friday. "We are running out of landfill space in SA. In 2016, three landfill sites were closed in Pretoria. These are sites that were meant to have an additional lifespan of about 25 years". According to the Paper Recycling Association of SA, the annual paper recovery rate has increased by 2% year-on-year since 2012 and is currently at 68.4%. PET Recycling Company (Petco) reports that plastic bottle recycled tonnage has increased more than nine-fold since 2005. "These figures point to a growing awareness of recycling, but more importan...
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