“We need to think differently about waste,” said Vice President of the Institute of Waste Management South Africa (IWMSA), Suzan Oelofse, speaking in her capacity as Group Leader: Waste for Development CSIR, Natural Resources and Environment Operating Unit Research, at Day 1 of the Joburg Waste Summit 2013 at Sandton Convention Centre.

According to Oelofse, this change in the way we think about waste is needed if we are to meet certain key National Waste Management targets for 2016, such as the target of reducing recyclables diverted from landfill by 25%, as well as implementing waste separation at source (S@S) in all the metropolitan municipalities and secondary cities, as well as the creation of 69 000 new jobs in the waste sector.

According to Oelofse, there is a huge potential to recycle, however people need to become aware. Although this awareness is critically needed, this awareness alone also does not translate into action, or rather the practice of recycling.

Currently 73,1% of South African city dwellers do not care about recycling, with only 3,3% of the urban population recycle on a regular basis, according to a CSIR study entitled “Recycling Behaviour in South Africa” done in 2010.

There are certain key drivers of social change that need to be in place in order for this awareness to be translated into action, namely motivation, ability and opportunity. “All three conditions must be met for people to change behaviour,” said Oelofse.

Oelofse also shared lessons learnt from current or past awareness campaigns, like the fact that clean up campaigns do not succeed in changing behaviour, or that incentives associated with clean up campaigns often reward bad behaviour. “Payment for clean-up campaigns must be decoupled from waste volumes,” she advised.

She noted that the message of awareness campaigns needed to be clear, that of “do no litter” or “reduce, reuse, recycle” and that these awareness programmes must be on-going in order to continue reminding people. Most importantly for the awareness campaigns to have any impact, the recycling initiatives need to be started and the infrastructure in place before creating awareness, or participants would lose interest.