Under the leadership of Plastics SA’s Sustainability Director, Douw Steyn and clean-up coordinators on the ground in Durban, a plan of action was devised to help solve the waste crisis that still faces Durban following the recent floods in the area.

After conducting a detailed needs analysis of the situation, clean-up teams from the local community,  managed by the coordinators, have been employed during May and June  to help  remove macro and micro pieces of litter from the major beaches and rivers in the Durban area. Thanks to the generous donations made by key role-players in the plastics industries such as Polyco, Petco, Safripol and Plastics SA, this clean-up team and  the waste collectors are now equipped with litter bags, chain saws, rakes, gloves, boots and other PPE and will be remunerated with a daily allowance. Their clean-up efforts during the next two months will be focussed on the “hot spot” dirty areas and will continue to be coordinated by Clean Surf Project (member of Inkwazi Isu Project – Fish Eagle Project South Coast River Catchment), Tri-Eco Travel and Tours (Durban North areas) and Durban Solid Waste.

Plastics SA has been supporting the River Catchment Projects in KwaZulu-Natal for several years now, which involves education programmes aimed at local communities, recycling infrastructure, litter booms and clean-up campaigns,  in order to save the marine environment by avoiding polluting riverways in three coastal catchment areas.

Clean, good quality post-consumer packaging materials have a value for recyclers and are in high demand for recycling into a myriad of other products. This material should not end up in landfill, and most definitely not in our oceans.

This is an excerpt of an article that appeared in the Saturday Independent Newspaper.

For more information on the plastics industry’s future plans to mitigate the waste crisis, read David Pogglioni’s recent article.