Recycling in the spotlight at annual awards

Barbara Thompson, Deputy Minister of the Department of Environmental Affairs said, “The recycling programme is essential for pupils to participate in; they gain a sense of responsibility, which is to keep the environment clean and they also learn teamwork, which is very important for growing individuals.”

Pupils from various regions over the years were encouraged to get involved and engrossed in the process of recycling from an early age.

Walter Leonhardt, ABI Finance Director said, “It is a very proud moment to come to an event where recycling is given the spotlight, which is not usually a popular thing to do. People need to learn to recycle and to realise that in the end we are the ones who will benefit from it.”

This competitive approach has not only created environmental awareness but has seen pupils and adults go out of their way to ensure that discarded waste is attended to, in turn, creating a cleaner environment for all and this is why The Schools Recycling Awards are held.

“We have not inherited the world from our ancestors but we are borrowing it from our children,” Leonhardt concluded.

Emcee of the day, Gaopaleloe Mothoagae, sustainable development manager at ABI, announced Ekuthuleni Primary School, in Ntuzuma, KwaZulu-Natal, as the winners of the Schools Recycling Programme who collected 27 604 kilograms of recyclable waste. They received R50 000 in prize money, which will go into improving their school’s facilities.

Second place went to Motjibosane Primary in Temba, Hammanskraal who collected 22 561 kilograms of recyclable waste and Siphosethu Primary, also in Ntuzuma, KwaZulu-Natal came in third. They collected 14 979 kilograms of recyclable waste.

Mothoagae said, “We are a company that values innovation and the ability to create solutions that are sustainable, so we gave a lot of thought as to how best we could recycle PET bottles, in particular, to obtain a lasting environmental impact. We realised that meant engaging with schoolchildren, thus getting tomorrow’s citizens on board now, thereby linking the entire recycling initiative to empowerment.”

Five years ago, the ABI team began working with around 40 schools, primarily in the townships. During the five years the programme has been running, 400 000 children have participated and this year, 404 schools were actively committed. Each school has to collect a minimum of 1 000 kgs per month and those who collect more, become eligible for monthly prizes.

John Hunt, managing director of Mpact Recycling said, “The whole thing around recycling involves a lot of partnerships, as the materials need to be collected, bought by someone from the collectors and then the bottles are manufactured to be sold, so it is a cycle that needs dedicated partnerships.”

ABI’s School Recycling Programme has achieved some startling results. Six hundred and thirty-three (633) tons of recyclable material (PET bottles, cans and paper) have been collected this year, which is equivalent to 100 African elephant bulls. This represents 4 340 cubic metres of landfill space saved and 1 253 tons of carbon not emitted into the atmosphere.