WASTE MANAGEMENT
Finding new waste beneficiation opportunities through science, technology and innovation South African businesses and households still send around 80% of all waste generated to landfill, despite having a policy environment that strongly promotes the waste hierarchy and the diversion of waste towards reuse, recycling and recover y. By Linda Godfrey & Henry Roman*
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hether it be for technical or economic reasons, the private sector has been slow to adopt alternative waste treatment technologies that reduce waste disposal and keep resources circulating within the South African economy. The Department of Science and Innovation
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(DSI) established the Waste Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Roadmap in 2015 to maximise the diversion of waste from landfill towards value-adding oppor tunities, including the prevention of waste and optimised extraction of value from reuse, recycling and recover y, so as to create local social, economic and environmental benefit.
The Roadmap guides South Africa’s portfolio investment in waste R&D and innovation, in order to suppor t effective decision-making; faster inser tion of context-appropriate technology; export of know-how and technology (where appropriate); and strengthened RDI capability and capacity. By focusing research on high-value product recover y, it is hoped that
