The recent demand for plastic bottles in the Western Cape has placed increased pressure on local recycling capacity in the province with many facilities unable to process the additional influx of bottles.

To address this issue Oasis Water and recycling experts Extrupet have partnered with the PET recycling company (PETCO) to transport 15MT of baled bottles to the Extrupet facility in Gauteng for processing.

According to Chandru Wadhwani, Joint Managing Director of Extrupet (Pty) Ltd. and PETCO board member, the pressing driver at the moment is to ensure that the extra volume of PET bottles that have found their way to the Western Cape on the back of the water crisis finds a home in a recycled product.

“Just by way of scale, when we load 15MT on the truck sponsored by Oasis Water, half a million bottles will now be recycled that otherwise wouldn’t have been. This for me is the ultimate value of this initiative and companies like Oasis Water need to be commended – they set the perfect example of what extended producer responsibility entails.”

For the time being, PETCO is monitoring the situation closely to determine whether additional transportation will be needed to ease the burden on the Western Cape recycling capacity, and encourages other companies to offer financial support should additional transport become necessary.

Making strides in recycling

Meanwhile PETCO has made massive strides in increasing SA recycling rates in recent years, with the company currently recycling more than half of all post-consumer PET bottles in the market.

“Through the remarkable network of people, companies and organisations we work with, we created more than 60 000 income opportunities for small and micro-collectors, changing their lives and those of their families in immeasurable ways and injected almost R900 million into the economy to date,” notes Cheri Scholtz, PETCO CEO.

PETCO’s contracted recycling partner Extrupet, has a fibre producing plant in Milnerton in Cape Town and a Bottle-2-Bottle plant in Wadeville, Johannesburg, where recycled PET plastic bottles are used to manufacture new bottles for many food grade applications or recycled into a myriad new and useful products such as polyester fibre for duvets and pillows, jeans and t-shirts, and reusable shopping bags.