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Nine cities around the world will celebrate the world’s first Global Recycling Day on this Sunday, 18 March 2018. Johannesburg will join London, Paris, Brussels, Sao Paolo, Washington DC, Sydney, Delhi and Dubai in raising awareness about the importance of recycling and urging people to think of recycling as a resource rather than waste.
Mpact Recycling communications manager, Donna Noble says Global Recycling Day is an important initiative by the Bureau for International Recycling (BIR). “We are excited about the campaign because it urges people to think about recycling in a new way. There is no doubt that recycling is critical for the wellbeing of the planet and the BIR initiative is a refreshing way to get this urgent message across.”
The BIR manifesto “Recycling: The Seventh Resource Manifesto,’ calls on the global populations to regard recycling as earth’s seventh ‘natural’ resource, along with water, air, oil, natural gas, coal and minerals.
Noble says the BIR cites climate change as the planet’s overriding environmental issue. “The recycling industry is playing a pivotal role in combating the effects of climate change.”
Mpact Recycling’s contribution can be seen in its annual collections of approximately 620,000 tonnes recovered paper and plastic every year where it is supplied to the Mpact Group’s paper mills and Mpact Polymers for processing into recycled-based cartonboard, containerboard and rPET for sale to South Africa’s packaging industry.
“This is material that would have otherwise ended up in the streets or in South Africa’s strained landfill sites,” adds Noble.
Not only does recycling reduce CO2 emissions, it helps boost local employment worldwide. In South Africa alone, The Paper Recycling Association of South Africa (PRASA) indicates that the recycling industry contributes to the employment of over 100,000 people.
In fact, says Noble, recycling helps to fulfil several objectives including combating climate change head on; boosting local employment; and conserving primary resources.
To help spread the message and to highlight the importance of a global approach to recycling, on social media, supporters of the Global Recycling Day are encouraged to use #GlobalRecyclingDay and adopt an exclusive Global Recycling Day border to their profile picture. People are also being invited to share videos and images of recycling actions and celebrations.
Want to do your part, here in South Africa? Support a local school or community that is part of the Mpact Recycling programme by simply dropping off recyclable material such as paper, long-life milk and juice cartons, newspapers, magazines, cereal boxes, egg boxes, toilet roll cores and even old books where you see the big green Ronnie banks.
Some recycling tips to remember:
About Mpact: Mpact is one of the leading paper and plastics packaging businesses in southern Africa, listed on the JSE’s Main Board in the Industrial - Paper and Packaging sector. The Group has leading market positions in southern Africa in recovered paper collection, corrugated packaging, recycled-based cartonboard and containerboard, polyethylene-terephthalate (“PET”) preforms, recycled PET (“rPET”), styrene trays and plastic jumbo bins. These leading market positions allow Mpact to meet the increasing requirements of its customers and achieve economies of scale and cost effectiveness at the various operations. Mpact has 42 operating sites, of which 21 are manufacturing operations, in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Botswana. Sales in South Africa account for approximately 90% of Mpact’s total revenue for the current year while the balance was predominantly to customers in the rest of Africa.
As at 31 December 2016, Mpact employed 4,998 people. (December 2015: 4,467 people)
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