A recycler's life — 60 cold drink bottles buy a
loaf of bread
Shonisani Tshikalange
5-6 minutes
To afford a loaf of bread which costs around R14, a waste recycler will need to collect 14kg of
cans — the going rate at some recycling companies is R1 a kilo.
This is the plight of the many people who make a living and feed their families by sifting through
waste, either on landfill sites or in rubbish bins outside people's homes on garbage-collection
days.
In Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria, Jonas Nkuna works from a dump site in Ext 19 where he and
his colleagues bring to reality the saying that 'one man's trash is another man's treasure'.
“When they dump plastic bags of rubbish, we search through them and get the recyclable items,”
said the 67-year-old..
Nkuna said while bottles make the most money, they are harder to collect.
A kilogram of cans gets about R1.
“The items must weigh a reasonable amount. In order for one to buy a loaf of bread one will
need 14kg of cans or more,” Nkuna said.
He started working at the dumpsite in 1990 and has been supporting his family through recycling
since then.
“I have supported my children and grandchildren through this job,” he said.
Castro Kapula, 53, from Mamelodi, walks around shops in Pretoria's CBD collecting cardboard
boxes and plastic for recycling in Bosman Street.
“The shops call me to inform me if the stock has been delivered so that I can collect the boxes.
When the stock has been delivered, I get into the storeroom, clean and collect the boxes and
throw away the rubbish. The recycling company takes plastic, boxes, white paper and steel. I
only work with boxes and plastic,” said Kapula.
This is how he has been providing for his wife and six children since being retrenched in 2009.
“My children go to school through this,” he said.
On a good day, he makes R300, while on less-productive days he makes R200.
From his earnings, R40 goes towards public transport to and from home. He takes home slightly
less if he decides to buy himself a cold drink or bread during his hard work day.
A recycling establishment owner in Pretoria CBD, who only wanted to be known as Charles,
said he takes white paper, boxes and cold drink bottles and cans for recycling.
He said at present, he pays more for cold drink bottles than other items.
“But all of them are almost equal. The cold drink bottles I buy for R6.50 to R7 [a kilo] and I sell
them for R8. I buy sour milk bottles for R6 [a kilo] and I sell it for R7.50,” he said.
“There are days where you get close to 20 or more recyclers coming in and there are days where
you don’t get even 10. Mondays are busy and Tuesday is a bit slower, Friday gets busy. On
Saturday and Sunday, there are no customers,” he said.
“I buy from the street recyclers, pack them into lots of 100kg to 200kg and send them to
Johannesburg. It is there at the big recycling firms that it's decided what will be done with the
items brought in,” he said.
Charles said he ventured into recycling because it was cheap to run and did not require much
expertise.
“What we buy is what people use every day. There is no reason for the business to fail. There
will always be people to bring items to me,” said Charles.
Having being in business more than 12 years, Charles said his profit varies.
“There are weeks you can make R3,000 and others where you make R8,000,” he said. .
What he loves about his job is that it also ensures that the town is clean of litter.
Lorren de Kock, project manager of Circular Plastics Economy with World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF) SA said the most recycled material (effectively recycled to be used in other
products) is metal, as it has the highest value.
“This is followed by paper and cardboard, glass and then plastics. Collection and recycling also
depends on the packaging application, for example HDPE milk bottles and PET beverage bottles
are the plastic packaging applications with the highest collection and recycling rates,” said De
Kock.
She said recycling, which is a private sector activity, does not receive direct financial assistance
from government and is based on market demand, which dictates prices.
“For PET beverage bottles, 28 to 32 bottles (due to differing sizes/weight of bottles) would
equate to 1kg and currently the best paying recycler gives R7.20 per kg. A loaf of bread on
average costs R15 in SA so you would need around 60 bottles to buy one loaf of bread. By
contrast,1kg of aluminium cans fetch R20 which would cover one loaf and a bit more,” said De
Kock.
De Kock said some issues facing the industry include poor product and packaging design and
lack of demand for post-consumer recycled material, among others.
“A great deal of packaging, specifically flexible and multilayer plastic packaging, cannot be
mechanically recycled. There is not sufficient demand for recyclate to be used in packaging and
other products which keeps prices low with a direct affect on collection and recycling
infrastructure investment and activity,” said De Kock.