Limpopo champions recycling efforts

The Limpopo Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism – in collaboration with the National Cleaner Production Centre South Africa (NCPC-SA) – hosted an event to share the impact that has been made in the past three years through a waste minimisation programme in the province.

The event – which took place on Tuesday, 7 February 2023 at Meropa Casino and Entertainment World in Polokwane – shared results and future opportunities through the Limpopo ISP (LIM-ISP), which has been running in the province since 2019.

The ISP has been a successful partnership project in many provinces that aims to reduce waste to landfill by facilitating waste or resource exchanges.

The programme has successfully diverted 49 518 tonnes of waste from landfills, saving 181 370 tonnes in CO2 emissions and creating eight permanent and 12 temporary jobs in the province.

The workshop on 7 February highlighted how these savings were achieved and plans to continue the positive impact in the province.

The NCPC-SA also demonstrate how companies can get involved and benefit from the programme, while local beneficiaries shared their case studies and experiences. Victor Manavhela, senior manager, NCPC-SA, says that the workshop proved to be very helpful to small businesses.

“ISP synergies not only benefit small businesses by providing waste solutions but also offer large industries a platform to circulate unused or wasted resources – preventing them from disposing [of] the waste to landfill, saving money and valuable landfill space.”

Only one year after establishing an ISP partnership, Dziphathutshedzo Green Surfacing and PWK Waste Management Recycling diverted 11 tonnes of waste from landfill.

Dziphathutshedzo Green Surfacing recycled HDPE plastic, which was collected and stockpiled by PWK Waste Management, and manufactured it into eco-friendly and durable paving bricks and stepping stones.

Ngwaabe Waste Management and Projects, a local solutions provider, requested LIM-ISP’s assistance to tap into a waste stream that predominantly favours Gauteng-based solutions providers within Limpopo.

Accordingly, LIM-ISP facilitated Two Rivers Platinum Mine to exchange their scrap steel with Ngwaabe Waste Management and Projects, resulting in 88 tonnes of waste diverted from landfill. These are just 2 of the 40 ISP success stories that were celebrated at the LIM-ISP impact and information-sharing workshop. Each demonstrates how LIM-ISP assists industry in Limpopo to recover and redirect residual resources for reuse by employing industrial symbiosis principles.

The ISP is a free facilitation service that promotes the exchange of residual resources (material, energy, water, waste, assets, logistics, expertise, etc.) of one company with another that can use it. Beyond Limpopo, the NCPC-SA implements ISPs in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga and the Free State.

The NCPC-SA is a national industry support programme managed by the CSIR on behalf of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. The NCPC-SA’s mission is to drive renewable energy and cleaner production in industrial and selected commercial and public sectors by equipping entities to operate in an efficient, sustainable and competitive manner.

Services and focus areas include industry and sector knowledge-sharing, company technical support, green skills development, as well as advocacy and awareness-raising.

The circular economy: a silver bullet to address all sustainability challenges and ESG commitments, or just a fallacy that will fail to materialise in the future?

By Nick Mannie*