According to the World Wildlife Fund, South Africa annually generates approximately 2.4 million metric tonnes of plastic waste, but only a mere 14% of it is recycled.
This mounting plastic waste pollutes rivers, beaches and already overflowing landfills. However, innovative initiatives are transforming this waste into concrete bricks, contributing to more sustainable housing solutions in Cape Town.
As per News24, a pioneering effort, led by the Western Cape’s Department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning and supported by private sector stakeholders, seeks to address this issue by focusing on schools and incentivising waste reduction.
The iThemba Phakama 4Ps (People, Public, Private, Partnership) project, a collaboration between provincial and national government departments, encourages students from no-fee schools to collect and donate plastic waste from their homes and communities.
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Recycling hubs have been established at these schools since late 2021, enabling the sale of plastic waste to other organisations while creating job opportunities for both formal and informal waste collectors in the community. The project has already gathered over 16 000 kilogrammes of plastic waste.
Ron Mukanya, the director of sustainability in the provincial department of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, emphasised the importance of changing how people perceive waste, encouraging them to view it as a valuable resource.
‘We’re trying to influence behaviour change in how to see waste differently, seeing it as a resource,’ he told News24.
He added, ‘We’re in close to 20 000 homes; that’s just by virtue of the number of learners we are currently reaching. We’re looking to double that over the next twelve months.’
Among the companies involved in collecting waste from schools is the Centre for Regenerative Design and Collaboration (CRDC), which operates its ‘Bag That Builds’ plastic recovery programme. At their facility in Blackheath, they transform plastic waste into fine dust called RESIN8, which is used in the production of bricks, pipes, pavers and kerbstones.
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When operating at full scale, the CRDC plant can process 610 metric tonnes of plastic per month. They have already created direct employment opportunities for 20 individuals, benefiting over 500 informal waste collectors and reclamation workers.
CEO Abraham Avenant highlighted the power of incentivising waste collection, stating, ‘What we’ve learned is that if you create value from non-recyclable plastic waste, the stuff that people usually just leave out there on the streets, people will actually start collecting that. So, they will pick up that chip packet and polystyrene cup, which are normally things they [informal waste collectors] would usually just leave there. If you incentivise, it will happen.’
Bags of RESIN8 are transported to a manufacturing facility in Eerste River, home to Inca Concrete, where they are blended into various construction products as a sustainable alternative to traditional quarried and crushed materials. This process not only recycles plastic waste but also mitigates the environmental impact of quarrying.
To date, the CRDC has collected more than 9 600 kilogrammes of plastic waste, resulting in approximately 124 000 bricks.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste, one of CRDC’s partners in the pilot programme, claimed that concrete products incorporating RESIN8 can be up to 15% lighter and possess superior insulation properties.
These concrete blocks are now being used to construct homes in Ilitha Park, Khayelitsha. The housing project, led by Bitprop, commenced in 2019 and aims to develop rent-generating apartments adjacent to homeowners’ properties.
In 2022, Bitprop began incorporating concrete products made with RESIN8, which now constitute around 70% of the homes under construction.
Tashriq Abrahams, an architect at Bitprop, explained the impact of this approach:
‘The construction phase is about 10 to 12 weeks [and] on every project, we employ about 30 to 50 people all from within the community. All our materials are also locally sourced, and that way, we keep money in the township economy.’
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