M A T E R I A L S R E C O V E R Y F A C I L I T I E S
Stellenbosch’s
NEW WASTE MRF As part of Stellenbosch Municipality’s commitment to becoming a greener and more sustainable valley, the local authority launched a brand-new waste materials recovery facility (MRF).
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andfills across the countr y are filling up, including the Stellenbosch Municipality site, which reached capacity in 2019. Building new landfill sites is not sustainable, nor is it environmentally feasible, as there simply isn’t enough land available to develop new landfills. Although Stellenbosch Municipality is currently investing in the expansion of its landfill site, it has also shifted its focus to minimising waste to landfill by reducing, reusing and recycling.
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AUGUST 2021
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Thus, the launch of the advanced recycling facility, commonly known as an MRF, is par t of the process of taking the minimisation of waste to the next level. This runs in conjunction with other waste minimisation initiatives.
and processed in Stellenbosch, allowing for faster turnaround times by eliminating the need to travel to Cape Town. At the same time, it will provide jobs to residents registered on the unemployment database, which also includes waste pickers.
Other initiatives
MRF processes
“The municipality is looking at various waste minimisation initiatives, which include the separation of green waste – which is shredded and beneficiated. We also diver t all clean builder’s rubble away from the landfill and are planning to crush this material to G5 aggregate to use in other construction projects,” says Stuart Grobbelaar, communications manager at Stellenbosch Municipality. The municipality has obtained an environmental authorisation and is busy with detail designs to construct an organic waste transfer station. The diversion of organic waste and recyclable material entails waste streams that have been identified in the National Waste Management Strategy as those that need to be diver ted from landfill. The MRF allows for recyclables to be handled
This is how it works at the MRF: • Mixed recyclables are transferred to the MRF and offloaded at the nor thern end of the building. • Bags are moved to the infeed conveyor by a loader or by hand, and are broken open by hand. • Glass bottles are removed and placed in a glass recycling container, while all other mixed recyclable material is placed on the infeed conveyor at an incline and feeds into the elevated sor ting conveyor, where the sor ters will extract the recyclables. • The 30 m sor ting conveyor has place for 36 sor ters, who extract the various recyclable materials and drop them into a separate container via a chute at each of their respective stations.
