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.

The iPhepa Bead project was recently started as a community empowerment project with a number of self-help groups of mostly women and youth from the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands of South Africa who are repurposing paper from glossy magazines, boxes, calendars, brochures and other paper, creating beauty out of waste.

Did you know that in our country all the used PET containers ' your clear beverage and water bottles ' collected for recycling are recycled into local products?

Recycling in Pretoria is going from strength to strength. All homes, flats and townhouses are now served by a domestic recycling collection company.

Some folk are just too 'comfortable' to appreciate a good thing, or do they just not care?

The recycling of PET (clear) beverage bottles is a success story in our country, as yearly more impressive targets are met.

Innovative recycled products including a world first were rewarded recently at the South African Plastics Recycling Organization's (SAPRO) second annual Best Recycled Product Competition award ceremony.  The winners were announced at a gala dinner at the Midrand Conference Centre.  

The e-Waste Alliance (eWA), together with the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa (IWMSA) is delighted to announce its third public e-Waste Collection Drive that will be taking place on Saturday 24 September 2011.

'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.

'The government has created the New Domestic Waste Collection Standards for municipalities to measure their own waste reduction strategies against, as all municipalities are obliged to organise separation at source,' said Bertie Lourens, MD of Wasteplan, during a chat with Redi Thlabi on Radio 702.

In South Africa there is much to do to curtail littering, minimise waste and educate communities on how to live and practice the 3 R's - reducing, re-using and recycling of waste.

We don't realise how lucky we are in this country.

Imagine a world where each one of us instinctively recycled and the amount of waste to landfill is minimal to none.

This month another milestone in the roll out of waste minimisation in our country is reached, when Cape Town's northern suburbs join the Think Twice curb-side recycling initiative to have their domestic recyclables collected and transported to a nearby materials recovery centre.

In many areas of the City of Cape Town, recycling is no longer something you wonder how to participate in, where to deliver your waste, or whom to call.

What to do if there are no recycling facilities in your area?

On a recent course I was shocked to find that one of the most environmentally informed people I know still harbored some misconceptions about the recycling of polystyrene in our country.

For millions of years all waste served as food for some organisms to live off and thrive.

The City of Cape Town's WasteWise Community Training Programme continues to yield facilitators to promote waste consciousness and encourage action in their communities.

Plastic is a remarkable material which comes in more than fifty different forms and has almost countless uses.