A first-of-its-kind PET (polyethylene terephthalate) processing facility, will be coming on stream in the Western Cape, in 2025.
This emerged at the International Solid Waste Association’s (ISWA) annual conference, held in Cape Town, this week.
The facility, is actually a bottle-to-bottle recycling capability, which will cost about R300 million project.
Through the facility, an additional 15, 000 tonnes of food-grade recycled PET will be realized per annum.
Speaking about the project, Chandru Wadhwani, Managing Director, at Extrupet Joint, said 64% of South Africa’s PET plastic bottles were currently collected for recycling.
“With this increased capacity, we will be able to accommodate more plastic waste and strengthen South Africa’s position as a circular economy leader in Africa and the world” said Wadhwani.
Also speaking about the facility, Bernice Swarts, Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, said “we view the facility as an opportunity to stimulate a demand for more PET materials and a supply of these by waste pickers and waste small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), thus creating stable markets for PET.
The facility needs to be fed and the collection system needs to be improved in order to meet the demand of this facility.”
She said waste pickers are an important contributor to the supply of the input material of plastic waste.
Petco, who worked with government to contribute to policy development and the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) legislation, was also at the conference.
Picture: Government news