Recycling Project
The project falls under the auspices of the Waste Management Section of the Municipality. Other participants on the project management committee are the ward councillors for ward 25 and 26; a ward committee member from wards 25 and 26; representatives from Waste Management at the Municipality; Mondi Recycling Division; Central Waste; the Keep Marizburg Tidy Association and representatives from the Department of Agriculture and Environment Affairs.
Householders in the participating wards are supplied with packs of orange refuse bags. A pack has enough bags to last for two months (one bag a week).
We are currently establishing a more efficient distribution of orange bags. Residents use the orange bags at different rates and many residents use up their bags before the next two month delivery is due.
This causes frustration. We want to make the availability of the orange bags as easy and trouble-free as possible for residents.
Our first step toward this achievement has been to identify the complexes and flats in Ward 25. There are 89 in total. The plan is to indentify someone in each of these complexes/flats who will be willing to carry a small stock of orange bags for distribution to residents in each complex/flat. The response so far has been very encouraging with 100% participation of the complexes/flats approached. We are also following this approach with stand-alone homes by identifying a specific geographic area and finding someone who lives in the area to be the stockholder for residents living in the area. The residents in the area have a notice put in their post boxes informing them of who the stockholder is in the area.
When they need bags residents will phone the stockholder who will deliver the bags to them or they can collect the bags from the stockholder.
We have introduced this strategy to an area of Athlone and are ready to expand it very quickly to the other parts of the ward.
The following items can be put into the orange plastic bags:
Newspapers, office stationary paper, magazines and cardboard
Plastic bottles, plastic containers (margarine tubs, ice cream containers, plastic Woolworth�s food containers) plastic bags and wrappings
Tins excluding paint tins.
We do not yet collect glass bottles but are looking at this possibility. There is no effective glass collection arrangement in the city and we are to approach Consol to see if we can set up something meaningful.
All recyclable materials can be put into the same bag. Householder must not put foodstuffs or baby diapers in the orange bags. These must go in the normal black bags.
The orange bags are collect on the same day as the normal waste. Central Waste collects the orange bags. The Municipal waste trucks collect the black bags and take them to the landfill site.
At Central Waste the contents of the orange bags are sorted, compressed and sold to manufacturers to turn into new products.
It just makes good sense for householders to support this project. Our landfill site is currently under considerable pressure and is nearing the end of its capacity. The more recyclable materials we divert to Central Waste, the more we extend the life span of our landfill site. It is also rewarding to know that by participating in the project householders are helping turn used materials into new products. This is both financially and environmentally sound.
Although Central Waste currently collects the orange bags each week, it would prefer not to as its interest is in the processing of the material. We will shortly reach a point where the Municipality will put out a tender for the collection of orange bags. This would be a BEE initiative and hopefully create jobs.
It is interesting to note that for every one ton of paper that is recycled:
-- 17 pine trees are saved
-- 3m square of landfill space is saved. This reduces costs to municipality as its transport costs are reduced and it frees up space at landfill site.
The Government's Polokwane Declaration requires municipalities to reduce waste to landfill sites by 50% by 2012
-- substantial amount of energy is saved. Energy saved by paper recycling per annum is sufficient to provide electricity to 512 homes for a year
-- 40% less energy is required to manufacture paper from recovered paper.
Good reasons to participate in the project, and these facts are for paper recycling only! I would appreciate it if you could discuss this matter at your Body Corporate AGM. I'm also quite prepared to talk to interested residents about the project if requested to do so. Please do contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you and hope that your response will be a positive one.
Kind regards
Cllr Dave Ryder 0787939675