What will you do with this copy of City Views when you’re finished with it? Will you treasure it or trash it? Use it to catch paint drippings, or pass it on to a friend?
Each decision of whether or not to reclaim a newspaper – or any recyclable – by not disposing of it responsibly has a direct impact on the environment. Studies show that on average Capetonians throw away 2kg of waste each day, 80% of which can be recycled. For every ton that isn’t recycled, one ton of CO2 goes into the atmosphere as methane gas.
A decision to treat your trash responsibly reduces your personal impact on nature significantly.
Reduce, reuse and recycle: seriously
Waste in Cape Town is either recycled or dumped in landfills. Each time material is recycled, it is given a new life span, exponentially reducing the effect on the environment – saving on the extraction of raw materials for a new product, the coal-powered energy to create it at the factory and the fossil fuels to transport it.
And Cape Town is running seriously short of dumping space: “Each time material is sent to the landfill it takes up more space of a very finite and rapidly dwindling resource,” says Alison Davison, the head of waste minimisation at the City of Cape Town. The remaining three landfill sites owned by the City of Cape Town have a combined capacity of six years and efforts begun 12 years ago to design and build two new landfill sites have yet to pass the public approval stage.
“Cape Town’s geography creates a beautiful setting for the bustling metropolis, but the mountains and sea that surround the city don’t allow a lot of space for landfills,” says Hugh Tyrrell of Green Edge Communications, a consultancy that promotes sustainable behaviour change. “And in some ways Cape Town is luckier for it – being forced to address its waste issues. The City’s municipal efforts at reducing the volume and effect of waste are respected nationally.”
Connecting the dots: One man’s trash is another man’s treasure
One innovative way to reduce business waste is to see by-products as useful: “Often one business’s garbage is another’s gold, and so we set up an Industrial Waste Exchange (IWEX), a free online system that joins the dots between waste generators and users," explains Alison.
The system serves as an initial contact point, and often the connections made online result in more formal working arrangements between firms, schools, NGOs or community groups.
In the Central City, individual building managers get reimbursed for reducing the amount of municipal waste collected – for example, if 10 of 13 bins provided by the City aren’t used due to internal recycling efforts, the City takes back the unused bins and reduces the rates accordingly, by R75 per bin each month.
Each CBD business is obligated to either hire an accredited contractor or pay the municipality to dispose of their waste. Recyclable waste is valuable, and some contractors even pay for the opportunity to collect it. Month on month the incentives laid out by the City and recyclers leave more in the pocket of businesses, resulting in less trash being sent to expensive landfills.
CCID recycling: Reducing the city’s waste-line
The Central City Improvement District (CCID) constantly affirms its commitment to a clean, safe and caring city, but what is it doing to reduce the carbon footprint of the CBD? Realising the potential to reduce the city’s waste-line and make CCID levies go further, COO Tasso Evangelinos signed up with Gavin Grosh of Luk4Junk in 2011. The result of this recycling partnership in a few short months? Of the 60 tons of waste swept up each month by the CCID cleaning teams in the CBD, 58 tons is now sent to recycling centres, while effectively reducing the CCID’s landfill waste bill from R30 000 to R2000.
“I’m the man in the middle between the waste collection and the waste disposal part of the process,” explains Gavin. “The waste is dropped off at my facility and I sort it; the CCID knows its waste is being handled sustainably and, on top of that, creating employment. The larger my company grows the more people I’ve got to employ. I’ve recently had to hire five more workers – all of whom were previously unemployed. The recycling industry doesn’t create wealth in isolation. It’s labour intensive and creates jobs,” he explains.
Across the board, between seven and 10 job opportunities are created in the recycling industry for every one job opportunity that opens up through a landfill project, Hugh affirms.
Did you know?
The uptake of recycling among Cape Town’s households who are given a convenient recycling option is as high as 90%, and averages at 80%.
Greening the waste cycle
How do you know that the waste from your home, office or business won’t end up on a landfill site? If your trash isn’t going into a bin labelled “paper” or “plastic”, the chances are good that it won’t go anywhere else. Organising a waste removal contractor to collect your recycling is as easy as making a phone call and having bins delivered that you can set up around the office.
Educate yourself on how to reduce your impact on the environment:
City of Cape Town’s Solid Waste Management: www.capetown.gov.za/solidwaste, 0860 103 089
Find funky recycling bins for the office
Postwink: www.postwink.co.za, 021 447 8783
Create a (recycling) job
Luk4Junk: luk4juk@gmail.com, 084 215 0263
Clearer Conscience: www.clearer.co.za, 082 339 9838
Sell your paper and scrap metal
Citi Scrap: 29 New Church St | 021 423 0795
Drop off paper and glass
Good Hope Seminary High School: Hope Street, Gardens | www.ghshs.wcape.school.za, 021 465 2330
Connect with the clean and green mapping movement
Cape Town Green Map: www.capetowngreenmap.co.za
Are you thinking twice about what to do once you’ve read this paper? We hope so.
This article first appeared in the March 2012 issue of City Views. Read it online.