Written by Harro von Blottnitz, Takunda Chitaka, Clare Rodseth: Environmental & Process Systems Engineering Research Group, University of Cape Town
Recently released industry figures claim that South Africa recovers 43,7% of its plastic waste for recycling, outperforming Europe’s plastic recycling by a significant margin of 12,5%.
This is in stark contrast to reported and observed plastics in the environment, with one global scientific study putting South Africa in the top 20 contributors to ocean plastics and estimating that 56% of plastic waste is poorly managed and prone to leakage into the environment.
If one adds up the 43,7% headline recycling rate and the 56% of plastic waste poorly managed, one would have to conclude that only 0,3% of plastic waste is properly disposed in landfill sites. Any visual of a South African landfill site would quickly dispel this view.
So it seems that not both of these claims can be true?
With a government-mandated packaging industry waste management plan compiled in 2018 and under review, it’s important that a coherent factual basis underpin the debate and the forthcoming decisions leading to interventions.
We take a look at what is known and how it is represented.
A coherent picture
Our first step was to compile the available numbers of how much is produced, used, exported, imported recycled and disposed and put them into a material flow analysis (MFA) – one big mass balance.
MFAs of plastics have been done before, notably in the 2017 report published by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), analysing plastics material flow in South Africa. Our picture differs from theirs in that we show circularity in the system where it exists and that we allow for an addition to stock of durable goods. Some of the numbers are very uncertain (as will be discussed below): in this version of the MFA, we use the lowest estimate from DEA (2017) for imported plastic goods. We also simplify that flow here to be entirely short-lived items.
The actual recycling quantities are well-reported in the annual recycling survey of Industry Association Plastics SA. For 2017, it reports that 487 kt of plastics were collected for recycling of which 335 kt became ready-to-use granulate. [Note that since Plastics SA reports 8% of the collected materials to be non-plastics,
we show only 448 kt in our diagram.]
Matters become more complicated when relating these numbers to virgin polymer and total plasticsproduction and consumption to arrive at the published recycling rate. It should be noted that the 43,7% claimed is an ‘input recycling rate’ (meaning that the collected waste rather than the produced granulate is used for the numerator), and that the denominator represents only the fraction of plastic estimated to go into short-lived usage.
Furthermore, whilst exported plastic packaging is duly removed from the denominator, imports of plastic packaging are not considered in this recycling rate (they would make it smaller, increasing the plastic consumption represented by the denominator). Imports are difficult to quantify, with a recent study published by the Department of Environment Affairs (DEA) estimating them to be at least equal to the quantity of plastics recycled and possibly twice as large as total domestic plastics use. [We have used the lowest number in our diagram, as we find it to be consistent with our estimate of total waste quantities].
Another way to quantify South Africa’s plastic recycling achievements would be to combine the available numbers into an average recycled content of plastics products made in South Africa – the way we read the numbers, this would have been 17% in 2017. May we suggest a target to double this in 5 years?
How much (plastic) waste is there and where does it end up?
Diverging opinions on the performance of waste management and recycling derive partly from an incomplete knowledge of how much waste is actually generated in the country. The most authoritative source of information is the now dated National Waste Baseline Report of 2011, which we have previously critiqued in a chapter of this book for including some very large flows of ‘other’ waste on a very speculative basis; importantly this baseline also does not quantify improperly disposed waste at all. A draft of a 2018 “State of Waste Report” is currently circulating.
An often repeated soundbite based on superficial interpretations of this baseline report is that only 10% of waste generated in South Africa is recycled.
This may be one of the reasons that the efforts of the recycling industry are not properly appreciated in many circles.
So, whilst plastics recycling in South Africa is indeed achieving impressive results (and in the process employing some 5000 workers formally plus an estimated 50000 informally according to PlasticsSA), at least 700 kt (PlasticsSA, 2018) and possibly as much as 2 500 kt (DEA, 2017) of plastic waste annually is not recycled. Our own best estimate is close to 1 100 kt; in other words, there is 2,4 times more plastic not recycled than recycled. Where does it end up? In order of quantity, there are three main sinks: disposal in
landfills, self-help disposal and littering.
In conclusion, South Africa does indeed do comparatively well at plastics recycling, but could recover much more. At the same time, almost one third of its population still does not enjoy regular waste removal services and plastic waste is ubiquitous in the environment. As a result, the country does both reasonably well and very badly at managing its plastic materials.
Picture: Repurpose Global