South Africa’s growing market for recycling solutions provides international technology suppliers and service providers with a multitude of business opportunities. Through private initiatives, the recycling market in South Africa is growing into a market with large potential. There is an increasing demand for high-quality secondary raw materials consisting of recycled plastics as well as paper and glass. With the country’s population expected to reach between 65 and 67 million people by 2030, the recycling volume will continue to increase significantly in the coming years.
The demand for recyclable materials is also partly due to the rising price of virgin materials. Lucrative prices can be achieved for recyclable materials. This offers opportunities for companies in the recycling business to collect waste for industrial customers, separate it and resell it.
There is demand for the work steps of granulation, cleaning, drying, and pelletizing. Due to high levels of contamination, South Africa needs modern washing facilities. Energy-efficient solutions are also increasingly in demand. Efficient waste separation and collection systems, which are largely lacking in South Africa, are also needed.
Food
Food waste is all food and inedible parts of food taken out of the food supply chain to be recycled or disposed of (incl. composted, ploughed under/not harvested, anaerobic digestion, bioenergy production, combined heat and power, incineration, disposal in sewer, landfill or discarded at sea).
Food is treated as disposable. One third of food produced for human consumption is wasted globally amounting to approx. 1.3 billion tonnes per year
Food waste has several negative effects:
- It impacts food security
- Resources used for food production and distribution are wasted
- Environmental impacts throughout the supply chain
Different types of food waste include household food waste, restaurant food waste and retail food waste. Households waste approx. 21% of all purchased Fruits and Vegetables, 19% of bread, 14% of dairy and 10% of meat. These figures are based on self-reported food waste percentages.
The food wasting in South Africa mimics that of developed countries. Reasons for wasting food are similar to reasons why European households waste food. They include date codes, especially best-before and expiry dates, appearance of produce (old/expired/rotten/bad smelling – crooked fruit and vegetables are common), forgetting fruit and vegetables in storage, packaging that cannot be resealed and is poorly protected, preparing too much, eating slowly, pests, buying too much, picky eaters and poor cooking skills.
In total, South Africans waste one-third of all food in the country – roughly 10-million tonnes of food annually.
Plastics
As part of the “Zero Plastics to Landfill” initiative, no more plastics are to end up in landfill sites by 2030. The growing population will increase the consumption of plastics and thus the volume of recyclable material. With the forecast expansion of plastics recycling, there should be increasing opportunities for supply from companies operating in the industry.
Paper
The paper recycling sector in South Africa is flourishing thanks to the efforts of suppliers, collectors, and consumers in waste management. South Africa’s paper recycling target for 2020 of 70% was reached in 2017 – three years ahead of schedule, after recycling 1.3 million tonnes of paper, cardboard, and liquid packaging.
Glass
For the multiple uses of glass, the two South African bottle manufacturers Nampak and Consol founded “The Glass Recycling Company” (TGRC). This company runs initiatives for the collection of used glass. These initiatives have increased the glass recycling rate from 18% in 2006 to 42% in 2018.
Metal
Most of the scrap metal market comes from the industrial sector. Each year, approximately 2.5 – 3 million tonnes of scrap metal are recycled in South Africa. This figure could rise further. The reuse of electronic scrap is being pushed. Beverage cans are increasingly being made from aluminum instead of sheet metal. Aluminum cans can be recycled and reused within 60 days. In addition, recycled aluminum can also be used for other purposes, such as incorporation into car parts.
Conclusion
The South African recycling market has been growing in all segments for years. Some of the growth rates are rapid. Recycling targets are sometimes reached years ahead of schedule. However, the market is still expandable and shows growth potential in the areas of paper, plastics, glass and metal recycling as well as food recycling. Recycling solutions are needed in all sectors in South Africa and must be further developed in the future in order to be able to solve problems such as food waste and environmental pollution more effectively.
