Recycling should be part of our everyday lives in order to ensure a sustainable future for the future generation.
In 2014, Nokubonga Mnyango quit her job as a driver-cum-admin clerk at a wood chipping mill in Richards Bay for what some community members described as ‘digging in dirty dustbins’.Today, she runs two flourishing buy-back centres in Empangeni, utilizing 22 full-time staff and supporting 100 waste collectors locally.
“I started collecting recyclables in the community, doing house-to-house awareness, and asking people to work with me,” Mnyango said.
Mnyango’s hard work and passion for recycling has been acknowledged by Producer Responsibility Organisation, PETCO, which, on behalf of its members, has supported her journey from wastepreneur to buy-back centre owner.
Mnyango said her love and passion for the environment is what drives her.
“When I quit my job for ‘scratching in dirty dustbins’, people laughed at me,” Mnyango said. But she knew that her passion would lead her somewhere. The same people who laughed at her later asked her for jobs. Mnyango now owns and runs Empangeni’s thriving Uthando Solutions and Trading recycling buy-back centres.
Uthando Solutions and Trading collects about 202 tonnes per month of mixed recyclables, which include various plastics, paper, cardboard, and cans, which in turn, are sold to recyclers.
It boasts 22 permanent employees who collect and sort recyclables. It also buys recyclables from 100 waste collectors for its two operational sites in Ngwelezane and Kuleka, Empangeni.
PETCO sponsored a large, branded recycling collection trailer in 2016 when Uthando Solutions hit the milestone of two tonnes of recycling collection per month based on an analysis of Mnyango's business. A large trailer, coupled with its increased collection capacity, contributed to Uthando Solutions success.
PETCO has continued to support and mentor Mnyango as her collection volumes increase.
Mnyango said apart from attending workshops and training co-hosted by PETCO, its sponsorship of a 6 meter office container in 2017 and signage helped her company increase its collection volumes to 7 tonnes a month, later increasing to 30 tonnes a month.
The installation of a baling machine for baling collected recyclables at Uthando's Empangeni site is PETCO's most recent support.
“The baler will help us to bale more recyclable materials and sell them to recycling companies more regularly, increasing our turnover and cash flow to buy more recyclables from the community and keep waste out of the environment,” said Mnyango.
“The machine’s operations will result in more storage space for recyclable materials, allowing us to expand our collection to other areas,” said Mnyango.
PETCO CEO Cheri Scholtz said Mnyango’s success story is proof that the organisation’s support on behalf of its members went further than merely sponsoring equipment.
Scholtz said that apart from positively impacting the environment, PETCO facilitates business growth, which leads to sustainable livelihoods, employment, and on a broader scale, community upliftment.
“Our objective is keeping our members’ packaging out of the environment, starting with helping them design packaging which, at the end of its life stage, can be recycled into other products of value. Succeeding in having packaging collected, recycled and reused helps us build a circular economy, ” Scholtz explained.
The CEO further said that keeping members compliant brought greater value in supporting each business’s individual environmental, social and governance objectives.
As the country relies on a high proportion of informal collection, PETCO is building a sustainable collection and recycling value chain at the same time.
According to Scholtz, there are more collection and income opportunities for people working in the informal sector because PETCO now administers multiple EPR schemes for a variety of identified products, such as PET bottles, their associated closures and labels, and liquid board packaging.