Salvaging Mother Nature

ACCORDING to reports, recycling for the average suburban household in South Africa is a bit of a schlep: the infrastructure for collecting recyclable material isn’t really in place – yet.
In the cities households generally have to separate their rubbish and take the recyclables to a municipal drop-off centre or a buy-back centre because there’s not much in the way of kerbside collection.
Although many people just can’t be bothered. there are also many people out there who would recycle if they knew how to.
A local place to take your recyclable refuse is Vryheid Salvage, situated at number 11 Ystersingel Street in the industrial area.
The place has been operative for the past 13 year and has created many job opportunities for locals.
According to the owners of the place the main issue is that many locals are not well educated about the importance of recycling and the impact it has on the environment.
Things would also be easier for Vryheid Salvage if they were able to work hand in hand with the municipality, especially the department that handles refuse management.
Most of the materials currently being recycled at the plant are obtained from informal recyclers who get the material from dustbins and the local dumpsite.
With the participation of all locals, a programme could be worked out where locals use separate refuse bags for their rubbish.
All the recyclable material would be collected by the municipal refuse vehicle and taken straight to the recycling plant.
The owners of Vryheid Salvage said that all this would work out well if the municipality were to step in.
Despite this minor issue, they are looking forward to seeing more community members showing interest in recycling and in turn saving the environment.