Trash4Cash provides a platform where users can earn rewards by recycling waste. Users collect points by dropping off waste.
Schools and organisations are often beneficiaries to encourage clean ups and making a positive contribution to the environment.
But for Busani Khumalo, who now stays in Randburg, collecting litter is his life, he says. “I am up by 5am to go and collect waste. If we can’t find what we are looking for, my friends and I head to dumping site to see if we can pick up anything from there.”
I tell him about the recent controversial study that concluded recycling can release huge amounts of microplastics into the environment. This is quiet the opposite to what we know, that recycling has been promoted by the plastics industry as a key solution to the growing problem of waste.
“What difference will that make? What I know is that the recycling company pays me and I am at least able to buy food for my family.”
1kg of plastic costs around R2 while 1kg of cupboard costs 70c, plastic bottles also pay R2 and milk cartons, R3.
How do we get recycling to pay better, do we have to change the value chain? Reconsider paying for waste with goods maybe? That’s a discussion for another day.
David Allaway, a senior policy analyst for the Department of Environmental Quality in the States, was quoted by Forbes magazine, saying “recycling can reduce costs to society through reducing pollution and climate change, but these benefits are not reflected in the economic signals that industry and local governments are responding to. ”
Watch this space as we speak to some product manufacturers about recycling and their thoughts.