Vouching for a cleaner, greener community

Teaching communities about recycling has yielded good results for the Big Start Buy-back Centre, which has recently been given a trailer by Packa-Ching to collect waste.

Big Start founder Thozeka Letuka said this had also had a good effect on cleaning up communities because people collect recyclable waste and get shopping vouchers in exchange.

Big Start is currently working together with Packa-Ching, founded by the Polyolefin Responsibility Organisation NPC (Polyco) to end environmental waste, reduce recyclable waste going to landfills and increase recycling rates in South Africa.

The mobility of the Packa-Ching units addresses the inconvenience of recycling by taking the recycling facility to the doorstep of its users.

Big Start collects recyclable waste from residents in some informal settlements and townships around Durban. In return for the collected waste, residents get shopping vouchers via their cellphones.

The initiative in operation in KwaDabeka, New Germany, Clermont, Reservoir Hills, Wyebank and Pinetown.

Letuka said the trailer ‒ which also provided an educational opportunity to drive home the message of recycling with easy-to-understand graphics on the sides ‒ had a scale inside. “Waste is measured on the scale and an individual receives a voucher according to what their waste weighed,” she said.

“The vouchers cannot be redeemed as cash but people can use them at Shoprite and Boxer.”

She said the programme had made a visible impact in keeping communities clean ‒ and making inroads into river health.

She said the area she lived in in Clermont was much cleaner because people did not throw rubbish in the streets or in the rivers because they were learning the importance of recycling and were getting something out of it.

Letuka said she believed that by 2030 the goal of having streets without waste would be achieved.

“We have achieved a lot because recyclable waste does not end up in the landfills but in the recycling companies,” she said.

She said they hoped to get this initiative active in the Pinetown CBD and other areas in Durban.

Letuka said one of the current challenges they were trying to resolve was some stores wanting to claim a commission from the vouchers residents received.