Two of South Africa’s most pressing needs, namely the need for sustainable, low cost housing and the need to divert recyclable materials away from our overflowing landfill sites, have found an unlikely common solution in recycled expanded polystyrene (EPS).
The world has finite resources and raw materials to supply us with. People are using these resources and degrading our environments faster than the planet can recover them. This threatens the promise of progress for future generations. This is why ensuring environmental sustainability is one of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals.
Recycling in Pretoria is going from strength to strength. All homes, flats and townhouses are now served by a domestic recycling collection company.
The recycling of PET (clear) beverage bottles is a success story in our country, as yearly more impressive targets are met.
'Waste pickers are not fighting for the right to be on landfill sites, they are fighting to be part of the waste management system,' said Mr Simon Mbata, representative of the South African Waste Pickers Association (SAWPA) at a workshop debate hosted by the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA) in Midrand last week.
I've been reading about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area larger than the US, where abandoned fishing nets, plastic bath toys, computers and plastic pellets wash around endlessly, and wondered if I would find my odd socks and lost pens there.
For millions of years all waste served as food for some organisms to live off and thrive.
The 'Waste in Business Seminar 2011', organised by Alive2green, considered the detrimental effects of current waste disposal techniques on the environment by looking at improvements to current technologies and the advancement of renewable and sustainable solutions.
The All Hands on Waste team engaging with the community at Njoli Taxi Rank on 15 April 2011.
Stand up for your future ' respect the environment. That's one of the calls to action by the Lead SA campaign that was launched in 2010.
It is a year and a half since the introduction of the Waste Act; the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA) recently hosted a workshop to debate the issue of 'The Waste Act ' One Year on'.
An overall strategy addressing waste management would need to consider not only the environmental implications of waste management, but the economic and social implications as well.
A great new development on the polystyrene front is the move towards washing dirty post-consumer waste.
The pressure on today's business world is not solely economic. Increasingly environmental issues are playing a role on the global stage.
Polystyrene got lumped with 'bad plastics' in the old days before it was recycled in our country.
The most common container in the soft drink market today in South Africa is the plastic bottle, or more specifically, the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle.
How can the mining sector reduce and in some cases eliminate the waste it produces?
In an attempt to get the youth more involved and interested in the field of waste management the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA) invited the learners from two schools to attend the WasteCon 2010 exhibition in Johannesburg and charged them 'an article made out of waste materials' each to enter.
Today I salute a rising star in the waste industry in whose bright face I see recycling grow into a central instrument in the healing of our planet.
I am often astounded to find people who don't know that polystyrene is recycled in our country.
