Citizens have been urged to adopt a recycling spirit to reduce their waste footprint this festive holidays.
The request is from RecyclePaperZA company, a member of the Paper Recycling Association of South Africa. RecyclePaperZA’s general manager, Anele Sololo, said in a statement, “Starting from the early festive shopping sprees and online shopping deliveries, you might find yourself with more paper packaging than you know what to do with.
“Not only vital for protecting our goods from the shop to the front door, but cardboard boxes can also be reused, repurposed and recycled.”
He also urged people to use the time to declutter. “It’s a great time to assess our waste footprint and recycling habits. In 2018, South Africa recovered 1.285 million tonnes of paper and paper packaging, representing a rate of 71.7 per cent. That’s nearly 1.3 million tonnes of stuff that didn’t end up in landfill, but instead went into making new packaging or tissue products.”
Sololo urged citizens to do their bit and get sorting, separating and paper recycling by the following 12 easy tips:
- If making lists and checking them twice, don’t forget to be nice and recycle them
- Flatten online shopping boxes and put them out for waste collectors
- Dispose of cardboard shoe boxes in a recycling bin or use them for storage
- Reduce clutter by disposing of old photos, receipts or kid’s art for recycling
- Re-use paper gift bags and boxes or swap them with friends
- Remove labels and tags for recycling before you re-gift items
- Label large boxes with keep, donate, sell, recycle or dispose to guide you when decluttering
- Separate non-paper material from paper-based packaging before recycling
- If you scrunch up gift wrap and it stays scrunched up in a ball, it’s paper-based and can be recycled. You can also do the tear test – if it tears easily and there isn’t a layer of plastic, it is recyclable.
- Avoid using wrapping paper with foil, cellophane, plastic coating or glitter. Brown kraft paper decorated with string and small pine cones is recyclable
- Avoid expensive postage by sending SMS messages or hand-made or charity greeting cards to friends and relatives
- Recycle magazines, cereal boxes, cosmetic boxes, milk and juice cartons and paper cups as well as plastic, glass and tin.
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