chapter 3: PACKAGING AND PAPER INDUSTRY WASTE MANAGEMENT PLAN
under development and could be operational during the term of the Plan. Given that recovery is still under development in SA, it is not appropriate to set a recovery target at this stage. The chart below shows the overall amount of material already being diverted from landfill as a result of reduction, reuse and recycling. The consumption bar shows that if there had been no initiatives to reduce and re-use packaging, packaging consumption would have been 5,55 million tons rather than 3,46 million tons.
It is important that environmental factors are considered by brand owners when selecting their packaging, and in the first year of the Plan PACSA will develop and circulate to all brand owners guidelines on how to ensure that their packaging is recyclable.
MEETING THE RECYCLING TARGETS
Implementation of the Plan will build on existing successful programmes and initiatives that have been undertaken voluntarily by the paper and packaging sectors in SA. There are two key performance areas necessary for the Plan to succeed: • Development of new collection systems for packaging and paper, in particular from households. The household collection arrangements will be based on the principle of separation at source, which is vital to ensure that recyclers get better quality and a higher quantity of waste, because contaminated packaging and paper waste often cannot be used. As the collection options affect all streams in the plan, they will be co-ordinated by a new industry body to be called SAPPREP (South African Packaging and Paper Recycling and Environmental Programme) under the auspices of 42
the waste revolution HANDBOOK