It is 7:30am, and Shaka Mthombeni, is pushing his third trolley of a combination of cardboard boxes and plastic waste.
I met him in his vibrant environment in Johannesburg CBD.
Mthombeni says he has been a reclaimer for at least 10 years, sorting plastic and cardboard to resell and support his family.
Professor Melanie Samson of the University of Johannesburg, says Mthombeni and his peers have saved Municipalities some R740 million in Landfill sites alone. Yet they are stigmatized and sidelined.
Mthombeni says, there’s no real work with Municipalities that he knows of, he is always up at 4am, in time to sort goods before waste collection service providers arrive on the scene, otherwise, he must head off to a Landfill site.
As I read Minister of Environmental Affairs, Barbara Creecy’s address to National Stakeholders concerning preparation for the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, in Kenya, later this month, I look out for work with reclaimers, and policies that protect these, our unsung heroes and heroines.
Creecy spoke at the National Stakeholder Consultation session, about South Africa’s preparation towards the Kenya meeting, understandably, because there are internationally binding agreements SA must adhere to.
“We recognised the threat plastic pollution poses to human health, ecosystem functioning, and the marine environment. In signing up for this process we recognised our constitutionally imposed obligation to protect our environment and human health” she said.
She said plans to tackle plastic pollution, require a wholistic approach in understanding the full life cycle of its manufacturing use, and disposal in the context of the National Waste Management Strategy, 2020.
Some interventions in the strategy include supporting and strengthening municipal waste management services. Developing extended producer responsibility schemes to collect, reuse and recycle plastic waste with the aim of promoting a circular economy in the plastic industry. Promoting public awareness and clean up campaigns to remove plastic waste from rivers, wetlands, and beaches.
She said thus far, EPR initiatives, have resulted in the formation of 5 registered extended producer schemes that support plastic waste collection and recycling; this has removed about 368 600 tons of plastic waste from the environment.
Elsewhere in the world, Rice University researchers developed some whizz method of converting unwanted plastic into H2 and graphene.
I wonder to myself, when the policy will start accommodating Mthombeni and his peers….