RECYCLING

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BusinessDay www.businessday.co.za Friday 16 September 2022

INSIGHTS

RECYCLING Sponsored content

Call for communities to wage war on litter Clean-Up and •Recycle SA Week gives everyone a chance to play their part, writes Lynette Dicey

S

A is rapidly approaching a waste crisis with landfill sites filling up at an alarming rate, despite the fact the country has best practice waste management legislation in place.

The problem, however, is that the legislation is not being enforced. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that there is little reporting taking place on the amount of waste being generated, recycled and disposed of.

Neither is there future planning taking place to manage

the growing amount of waste the country is generating. The last time Johannesburg or Tshwane commissioned a new landfill site was in the early 1990s and most of the existing landfill sites in both cities will soon reach capacity.

It can take up to five years for a new landfill site to be licensed

and constructed so there is no quick fix to the problem.

“Our current waste management system is broken and needs to be fixed,” says Douw Steyn, sustainability director at Plastics SA and the co-ordinator of the annual Clean-Up and Recycle SA Week taking place until tomorrow.

According to Stats SA, 39% of SA’s population don’t have access to waste management systems. About 54-million tonnes of waste is produced each year in SA, the majority of which ends up in landfill.

“This is enough to cover an entire soccer field 10 metres deep every day. The amount of waste we generate puts our landfill sites under extreme pressure,” says Steyn.

He adds that SA cannot afford to only cherry pick certain materials or products to recycle — we need to be collecting all waste and moving it to many smaller beneficiation centres where it can be sorted, baled and sold.

Exacerbating our waste problem is the fact that most South Africans are not separating their waste at source.

“Recyclable waste has value if correctly sorted,” explains Steyn. “Residual waste needs to be collected for other repurpose

alternatives such as pavers and pyrolysis to produce diesel for vehicles collecting the waste.

There are a number of available solutions. However, we need to collaborate on finding those that are fit for purpose and meet SA’s needs.”

Every citizen, according to Steyn, can make a difference to reduce the amount of waste that pollutes our environment or ends up in landfill.

This is the 26th consecutive year Plastics SA has coordinated SA’s involved in the International Coastal Clean-up Day that will take place at beaches around the country tomorrow. In partnership with volunteer organisations and individuals around the world, the International Coastal Clean-up Day initiatives encourage people to remove rubbish from the world’s beaches and waterways.

Since the inception of the initiative, more than 17-million

Designing products with recycling and the environment in mind Product design that takes into consideration recycling is critically important if we are to achieve a circular economy for more products.

In July this year, Coca-Cola announced that Sprite was switching from its iconic green plastic bottle to a clear bottle in an effort to support a circular economy for plastic packaging.

Not all manufacturers are as focused on enabling a circular economy.

“Most manufacturers want to produce packaging that is better for the plant but the major obstacle is cost,” says Jason Forbes, owner of The Graphic Ballroom, a branding and design packaging company. “Most consumers are more priceconscious than eco-conscious and brands are struggling to hold on to consumers who are becoming less brand loyal.”

All too often, what brands do or say in terms of recycling is more of a marketing statement than a long-term sustainable change, he says.

However, by making small changes in packaging design it is possible to positively impact the environment and still achieve impressive looking packaging that appeals to consumers. This, however, will take time and will be driven by consumers demanding that packaging is recyclable, brand manufacturers implementing changes and government legislation coupled with local government working to enable circular economies.

Globally, reports Forbes, there is a trend towards the use of less “mixed material” packaging, ensuring that the same material is used for different parts of a product and

therefore making it easier for packaging to be recycled.

The drive to reduce nonrecyclable materials in packaging is a global trend, he adds, and is resulting in more and more alternative packaging solutions becoming mainstream. “The use of flexible packaging and biodegradable or compostable packaging is bringing innovation to the marketplace. At the same time there is a trend towards simpler packaging and taking a more

minimalist approach.”

One company that has taken heed of these trends is Sanitouch, the manufacturers of the Sani-touch sanitising trolley wipes as well as a range of medical grade wipes. Over the past two years the company has been on a journey to create a circular economy for its used wipes to save them from landfill. This journey has culminated in the recycling and repurposing of used wipes to manufacture outdoor furniture

We are here to take a stand Today more than ever, with the global waste crisis, we are taking up the challenge to recycle as many PET bottles as possible. In so doing, we are helping the environment, enhancing the packaging industry and creating jobs all at the same time.

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including jungle gyms and outdoor benches. It has also adapted its wipes so they are biodegradable and compostable.

The company recently launched a fully biodegradable and compostable cleaning cloth made from plant fibre and hydroentangled using water pressure. The biggest benefit of the cloths are that they can be discarded into kitchen waste.

Sani-touch has been working with growing medium and compost specialist 9Five Integrated Nutrient Systems to turn kitchen waste, including its biodegradable cloth wipes, into specialised growing mediums.

“Our products are all designed with the environment in mind and ensuring that they can become part of the value chain in a circular economy,” says Sani-touch marketing director, Annette Devenish.

volunteers have collected close to 1.6-million kilogrammes of litter globally. Steyn reveals that as a result of the success of this annual one-day event, Plastics SA decided to turn the entire week into a nationwide awareness campaign that encourages citizens from all walks of life, ages and backgrounds to make a conscious effort to pick up and remove litter from their streets, neighbourhoods, schools, inland water sources and streams or nearby beaches.

ACTIVELY SUPPORTED Clean-Up and Recycle SA Week is actively supported by all the various packaging streams, producer responsibility organisations, various sponsors, business and industry, as well as national and local government, community organisations and municipalities. In SA the week includes River Clean-Up Day on

Wednesday, September 14; National Recycling Day on Friday, September 16 and World Clean-up Day on Saturday, September 17.

Plastics SA, the umbrella body representing all sectors of the South African plastics industry, will be distributing more than 500,000 refuse bags to support clean-up events. The industry association has been actively supporting various clean-up initiatives taking place throughout September.

A big focus for this year’s event will be river catchment areas, given that most oceanbased litter derives from land-based sources such as rivers, because of littering and illegal dumping. Another focus will be on underwater cleanups to remove litter on the ocean floors.

“The annual Clean-Up and Recycle SA Week has grown from strength to strength, despite the fact the Covid-19

pandemic prevented large groups of people from attending public clean-ups over the past two years,” says Steyn.

“We noticed that people started to focus more on cleaning their immediate surroundings, including their own streets, local schools, rivers, beaches and other public spaces. As a result, we saw significant amounts of visible litter being removed, separated and sent for recycling.”

He adds that September is the month for spring cleaning.

“It’s about a call to action to all South Africans to help us clean up and rid our environment of litter, as well as to encourage citizens to support recycling.

The majority of litter products, especially packaging, could and should be sent for recycling. It should not be discarded in the environment as litter.”

For information on how and where to get involved, log on to www.cleanupandrecyle.co.za.

Education key to making cleaner, greener choices The opportunities to make a difference are endless, but the starting point is education, according to Shaun Bouwer, national sales and marketing at Extrupet, one of the largest and most advanced recyclers of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle materials on the African continent.

“When it comes to recycling we need to instil a better understanding of what is relevant for a specific geography. Our reality in SA is that most of the raw materials we use originate from landfill.

Brands need to understand how their product packaging will be collected from landfill and factor that into packaging design. It is only if there is a value chain in place that waste will actually be recycled,” he says.

An example of poor product design, he reveals, are blue milk bottles. Blue high-density polyethylene (HDPE) cannot be

upcycled into white HDPE bottles and re-used for blow moulded HDPE bottle packaging. Instead, they can only be downcycled for lower cost HDPE pipe applications, which limits the recycler.

“Unless product packaging is designed well enough in advance, the packaging is doomed to an end of life in landfill or in our oceans,” he explains, adding that it’s important local recyclers are involved from the outset in terms of what is possible.

Bouwer says not only should the entire value chain be considered from the outset but brands also need to conduct a life cycle analysis to ensure no part of the packaging design

IT’S IMPORTANT LOCAL RECYCLERS ARE INVOLVED FROM THE OUTSET

ends up in the ocean.

He warns consumers to be wary of believing labelling claims of “100% recyclable”.

“A product might, in theory, be recyclable, but whether SA has the facilities in place to recycle that particular material is another question.

Unfortunately, too many brands make false claims on their labelling. In a similar vein, consumers need to wary of believing claims of biodegradable or compostable, given the near perfect environmental conditions required for degradation to occur.”

Education, calling out brands who green wash and changing consumer buying behaviour is the only way forward, he insists.

“As consumers we need to decide when to buy a product.

Making good choices enables a cleaner, greener and more sustainable environment.”

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BusinessDay www.businessday.co.za Friday 16 September 2022

INTERNATIONAL

Europe mulls load-shedding as it braces for power crunch

• Countries are putting in place winter emergency measures as Russia threatens to halt gas supplies Todd Gillespie and Francois De Beaupuy It is December in Europe, and the temperature is dropping.

People have the heating on as they cook dinner, run the washing machine, watch television.

But in France, the grid operator is running out of options to keep the lights on.

The utility has issued a “red” alert, meaning supplies are at their limit. It has already cut off some big industrial users and reduced voltage, and sent out a mass request to households to curb their electricity usage.

Many comply, but it’s crunch time. The operator needs to take the drastic step of shutting down power in some places to avoid a total collapse of the system.

It’s a dramatic scenario, but one that governments across Europe are preparing for as the energy squeeze that has gripped the continent gets worse with each passing week. On Wednesday, France’s Reseau de Transport d’Electricite said it will probably have to ask the country to cut consumption several times this winter to avoid rolling blackouts. Finland also ramped up its warnings about outages.

The heightened alert follows Russia’s move to halt gas supplies through the key Nord Stream pipeline, further raising the prospect of a shortage of gas to heat homes and generate electricity. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly reduced flows to Europe in 2022, retaliation for sanctions

Gassing up: Liquid bulk facilities at the HES Wilhelmshaven Tank Terminal in Wilhelmshaven. Germany has been racing to fill its gas storage facilities to prepare for the winter. /Bloomberg imposed after his country’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The reality is that there is not enough gas in Europe,” said Ed Birkett, head of energy and climate at Onward, a Londonbased think-tank. “If demand isn’t reduced, then businesses will be forced off the grid, and in an extreme scenario households could be forced off the grid.”

PRECEDENTS There are plenty of recent precedents. Texas’s grid went down in 2021 during cold weather, leaving millions without power for days. California came close to such a situation earlier in September during extreme heat.

SA is no stranger to rolling blackouts, largely due to years of

underinvestment and maintenance neglect. They are scheduled in different areas at specific times when Eskom cannot guarantee enough power.

For Europe, much will hinge on the weather over the coming months. Small swings in temperature can radically change power needs. In France, a 1°C drop typically boosts power demand by about 2,400MW, the output of about two of its 56 nuclear reactors.

“If we have a really extreme winter, it would have as deleterious an impact on our grid as it did for Texas,” said Adam Bell, a consultant who previously led energy strategy at the UK department for business, energy and industrial strategy.

“Anything people can do now

to lower their demand will help the overall cause.”

The European Commission has proposed a regulation calling on governments to cut overall electricity usage by 10%, as well as a 5% mandatory reduction during peak hours.

Analysts at Goldman Sachs said in a report that “the more reductions we see, especially in summer, in gas consumption, the less likely Europe is to face blackouts”.

But some government aid measures may add to the problem. Price caps aimed at helping consumers and businesses cope with soaring prices reduce incentives to lower consumption. Other factors are also at play.

France, traditionally Europe’s largest electricity

INSIGHTS: RECYCLING

Paper an integral part of the circular economy in SA SA’s forestry and paper industries are a good example of a successful circular economy.

“Pulp and paper products are, by nature, a circular and renewable economy,” explains Jane Molony, executive director of the Paper Manufacturers Association of SA (Pamsa).

“In SA the trees used to manufacture pulp and paper come from sustainably grown plantations. Once mature, the trees are harvested and new trees are planted to replace them. Only 10% of the total plantation area is harvested in any one year which means there is always consistent supply of newly planted saplings, growing trees and mature stock.”

An effective circular economy is based on three principles: reducing waste by design; retaining materials in circulation; and restoring the systems from which resources are extracted. As a whole, the sector aims to balance economic, social and environmental aspects with plantations designed to be rotational and paper packaging is, in many cases, designed for recycling. The circularity extends to pulp and paper mills which operate in a closed loop process using natural resources such as water more than once.

Both virgin and recovered fibre are equally important for the circular economy which makes the switch to paper appealing for both brands and retailers. The ability to recover as much recoverable paper from consumers is where the rubber hits the road.

A study by Graz University of Technology in Austria found that fibre-based packaging can be recycled at least 25 times without losing mechanical or structural integrity. This presents significant opportunity as carton board is among the highest recycled paper grades

in SA. In 2021 SA recovered 1.15-million tonnes of paper products and has averaged a 68% recovery rate for the past five years, well above the global average of 59.3%.

Edith Leeuta, CEO of Fibre Circle, the paper and paper packaging sector’s producer responsibility organisation, says: “We need to bridge the gaps between infrastructure to collect waste paper and our technical capacity to recycle it, while also growing awareness around paper recycling and handling wet waste, a nemesis for recyclable paper.”

Fibre Circle was established in 2019 with the aim of steering the paper and paper packaging industry’s compliance to the extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation which came into effect in 2021.

EPR requires that producers take responsibility for the life cycle of the products they put into the market. It also shines a light on areas for improvement, especially in the face of plastic substitution. All forms of packaging, however, need to be

FIBRE-BASED PACKAGING CAN BE RECYCLED AT LEAST 25 TIMES

designed with local recycling technology and capacity in mind.

The organisation has been working with manufacturers and importers to find solutions to recover difficult-to-collect products and improve capacity to process difficult to recycle products such as liquid board packaging, label backing paper and even potato bags.

“There are a number of research and pilot projects in play, and we look forward to sharing the results,” says Leeuta.

For past few years, the PRO has partnered with the department of science and innovation to explore ways of using wood cellulose and reusing by-products from the paper-making and recycling processes to create high value and sustainable bio products.

Local companies are also coming to the party. Over the past few years Mpact, the largest paper and plastics packaging and recycling business in Southern Africa, has made significant investments into the upgrade of its KwaZulu-Natal Felixton paper mill, increasing its capacity by 60,000 tonnes to 215,000 tonnes. The mill aims to increase its recycled containerboard capacity by 2023.

In a bid to increase collection and processing of recyclables

closer to its Felixton mill, Mpact invested R150m in developing a new property to handle recycling. The facility, completed earlier this year, bales recovered paper for Mpact’s paper mills.

In 2016 the company upgraded its Springs mill so that used milk and juice cartons could be processed. It has partnered with more than 45 buy-back centres which support about 1,000 waste collectors daily, as well as 150 independent dealers and close to 2,000 schools and communities who supply their recyclables for remuneration. In 2021 Mpact collected more than 620,000 tonnes of paper and plastic recyclables from preand post-consumer sources.

Mpact CEO Bruce Strong says the company’s integrated business model is uniquely focused on closing the loop in paper and packaging, positioning the group to benefit from the ongoing drive towards a circular economy by brand owners, manufacturers and governments alike.

Kimberly-Clark South Africa (KCSA) has invested more than R92.8m in its Springs-based Enstra tissue-making facility over the past 25 years, first with the commissioning of a stateof-the-art de-inking and recycled fibre plant in 1997 and then further upgrading it in 2012 to ensure the company could consume a wider variety of recyclable paper.

The tissue sector is a significant consumer of recycled paper fibre, especially used office paper. Enstra also uses wetlap, a recycled fibre output from the plant used in various KCSA products.

“The KCSA Recycled Fibre Plant is designed to process 80,000 tonnes of recycled paper annually. Currently we are processing about 30,000 tonnes,” says Enstra mill manager Nkululeko Mzila.

exporter, may have to import large amounts of power this winter as Electricite de France grapples with the reduced reliability of its ageing nuclear fleet. A dry summer has affected hydro power across Europe, including in Norway, also traditionally a large exporter.

If the crisis escalates, cutting power to homes is a last resort, and there are a range of options that authorities will take first.

The easiest have already started. Governments have recommended turning down thermostats and taking shorter showers, and are reducing their own consumption by lowering temperatures in public pools and turning off outside lighting on public buildings at night.

UNPALATABLE The usual next step is for large energy-intensive companies, many of whom already have pre-arranged agreements with governments, to reduce usage or shut down. After that, choices become more unpalatable.

In France’s case, the EcoWatt system allows people to monitor forecasts for power supply and demand days ahead, with three levels: green, orange and red.

If the grid operator expects the situation to become critical, it will issue an alert the evening before. “In rare cases where all electricity needs cannot be covered, local, controlled outages lasting a maximum of two hours could be organised,” the EcoWatt website says.

Scheduled power losses,

while bad, are still better than uncontrolled blackouts because of unrelenting strains on supplies. They allow operators to limit outages, rather than be plunged into a chaotic situation where it takes days to get everything back up and running.

There are similar processes in place elsewhere. If the emergency plan is triggered in the UK, it would first ask households and industries to try to save energy. The next step would be for large energy-intensive companies to shut down.

Evidence from California suggests such measures work.

On September 6, the state’s office of emergency services declared its highest grid emergency level, then sent a text alert: “Turn off or reduce nonessential power if health allows, now until 9pm.” Within minutes, power usage dropped. The emergency was later cancelled without any blackouts.

France has published its own estimates to encourage compliance with such requests. If every household were to turn off one light bulb, that would save as much as 600MW, the equivalent of the consumption of 600,000 inhabitants.

“Overall, the message to reduce demand across Europe now doesn’t seem to be hitting home yet,” said Simone Tagliapietra, a fellow at Bruegel thinktank in Brussels. “Just walk around our cities — you still see supermarkets closed at night with lights on. We are simply not there yet.” /Bloomberg

POWER POLITICS

Iran links up with Russia and China in security body Parisa Hafezi Dubai

Iran has moved a step closer towards becoming a permanent member of a China and Russiadominated Asian security body, as Tehran seeks to overcome economic isolation imposed by US sanctions.

Foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Thursday Iran signed a memorandum of obligations to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), which is holding a summit in Uzbekistan.

The body, formed in 2001 as a talking shop for Russia, China and former Soviet states in Central Asia, expanded four years ago to include India and Pakistan, with a view to playing a bigger role as counterweight to Western influence in the region.

“By signing the document for full membership of the SCO now Iran has entered a new stage of various economic, commercial, transit and energy cooperation,” Amir-Abdollahian wrote on his Instagram page.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was in the Silk Road oasis of Samarkand, Uzbekistan on Thursday to attend the summit.

He held a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian state TV reported.

In 2021, the central Asian security body approved Iran’s application for accession, while Tehran’s hardline rulers called on members to help it form a mechanism to avert sanctions imposed by the West over its disputed nuclear programme.

Iran will now be able to take part in the body’s meetings,

though it is likely to take some time to achieve full membership, deputy secretary-general of the organisation Grigory Logvinov told Russian state TV, which also reported the signing.

Iran’s economy has been hit hard since 2018, when then-US President Donald Trump abandoned Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers, including Russia and China.

Months of indirect talks between Iran and US President Joe Biden’s administration have hit a dead end on several obstacles to reviving the nuclear pact, under which Tehran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions and mounting concern about an emerging USbacked Gulf Arab-Israeli bloc that could shift the Middle East balance of power further away from Tehran prompted Iran’s clerical rulers to pursue closer economic and strategic ties with Russia, itself hit with sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

“Iran is determined to boost its ties with Russia, from economic to aerospace and political fields,” Raisi said during his meeting with Putin, according to Iranian state media.

In July, days after Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia, Putin visited Tehran in his first trip outside Russia since the start of the February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Putin said on Thursday that a delegation of 80 large companies will visit Iran next week, Russian state-owned news agency RIA reported, in another sign of the growing ties with Iran. /Reuters