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Johannesburg - Recycling PET‚ the plastic used to
manufacture beverage bottles and food containers‚ has helped generate almost 26
000 indirect jobs‚ and the plastics recycling industry can reduce poverty
across SA and contribute to GDP growth‚ says Petco CEO Cheri Scholtz.
Petco is the industry organisation responsible for PET
recycling in SA.
Addressing the SA National Bottled Water Association’s
Conference in Midrand on Tuesday‚ Scholtz said that Petco and its recycling
initiatives had become a global benchmark for extended producer responsibility
because of its success to bale by bale‚ year by year‚ reduce the volume of
post-consumer PET plastic in the waste stream.
Working with collectors‚ recyclers‚ converters and packaging
designers to ensure the successful growth of the PET recycling industry‚ Petco
is well on the way to achieving its challenging target of recycling 50% of all
beverage PET by 2015.
Extrupet’s Chief Operating Officer Chandru Wadhwani told the
conference that the dilemma for bottle converters to meet challenging customer
demands for “marketing friendly” packaging while at the same time meeting the
demands of the Waste Act to be responsible producers’ was an ever growing one.
“No longer is it sufficient for packaging to just be
‘recyclable’‚ it must be able to demonstrate that it is in fact being recycled.
Designing packaging with recycling in mind from the offset is critical in
determining its final recyclability as recyclers are ever cautious about which
‘packs’ they will accept‚ and which they will not.
“Ultimately‚ there is a ‘win/win’ approach that can be achieved from pro-active engagement between the designers of packaging and recyclers so we can all ultimately achieve a ‘cradle to cradle’ solution for packaging‚” Wadhwani said.
