Locally manufactured products that are made from recycled plastic materials will be acknowledged at this year’s Recycled Plastic Product of the Year Awards.

The competition, which was first held in 2010, will be hosted by the South African Plastics Recycling Organisation (Sapro).

Dubbed “The Oscars of the plastics recycling industry”, the awards receive much attention within the plastics industry and have grown both in the number of entries and variety of different products submitted.

Sapro said: “This biennial competition showcases the tremendous amount of ingenuity and creativity our local product designers have, and aims to encourage brand owners to seriously consider recycled plastics as a material of choice. Whether they are designing packaging or pallets, shoes or shopping bags, this competition has demonstrated that there is no limitation to where and how recycled plastics can be used.”

Past winners

Previous overall winners include the City of Cape Town and Mpact Plastic Containers with their Fifty/50 Wheelie Bin (2015), Unilever with their Sunlight Dishwashing bottle (2013), Lasher Tools with their Eco-Wheelbarrow (2012), Woolworths and Polypet with their 1.5 litre juice bottle (2011) and Tufflex Materials with their innovative railway sleeper made from mixed materials (2010).

Winners of this year’s competition will be announced at a gala dinner in Gauteng during Clean-Up and Recycle SA Week (11-17 September 2017).

Product categories and judging criteria

Sapro said that in order to encourage even greater participation and entries by local converters and innovators, this year’s competition will have the following five distinct product categories:

• Products made from 100% post-consumer recyclate
• Products containing a percentage post-consumer recyclate
• Products made from recycled mixed materials
• Novel and Artistic products – i.e. articles made from discarded plastics products
• For the first time – A “new ideas” category including anything that can be made from recycled materials has been introduced.  “It does not have to be a product as yet, just the idea clearly explained on a poster, mock-ups or a good explanation,” Sapro said.

Rules, regulations and entry forms

Any company in the SADC region may enter the competition, provided that the recycled material originated in South Africa. Products that were entered in previous years’ competitions, but failed to win, are also eligible to enter again.

The closing date for entries is Thursday, 10 August 2017.