Polyco, in partnership with women-led local enterprise Trash2Treasure Recycling and Waste Management, launched a new mobile Packa-Ching recycling unit in Benoni that also services Soweto.

Representatives from Sasol, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE), Pikitup, City of Ekurhuleni Municipality and PRO Alliance, attended the event to show their support. Community members and Packa-Ching enterprises were also present, demonstrating their commitment to business empowerment and environmental sustainability while supporting job creation through the Green Youth Network.

This latest unit, sponsored by Sasol, joins Polyco’s national Packa-Ching network and brings paid recycling collection directly into low-income communities, placing a woman-owned business at the centre of the local circular economy during Women’s Month.

The Packa-Ching network, currently consisting of 62 trailers nationally, pays communities directly for plastic and other recyclables they collect, with all volumes recorded through the WeighPay platform. To date, the project has paid more than R57 million to participating communities and diverted over 45 million kilograms of recyclable material from landfill.

Trash2Treasure was founded by local entrepreneur Nokuthula Tshabalala in 2014 and formally registered in 2018. Over more than a decade, Tshabalala has built a community-based enterprise that serves households, schools and businesses, creating income opportunities for women, youth and waste reclaimers in the area.

The new unit launched in Putfontein, Benoni, builds on that proven track record, adding capacity to an enterprise that already collects significant volumes from multiple sites like Soweto and has earned the trust of the community it serves.

The launch lands during Women’s Month, held this year under the theme “Empowered Women Empower the Nation”. Women have long done much of the day-to-day work of collecting, sorting and recovering recyclable material, often informally and with limited access to equipment, finance and formal markets. Women-led enterprises like Trash2Treasure show what changes when that work is recognised and supported. This shift to support women-led enterprises is reflected across Polyco’s wider enterprise-development work.

In 2025, Polyco invested more than R22 million across its enterprise-development value chain, supporting 23 small and medium-sized projects, 14 of them women-owned. Since inception of the 62 Packa-Ching trailers funded, 21 are women-owned.

“Women are the backbone of this recycling economy, collecting, sorting and recovering material long before anyone thought to invest in them,” said Patricia Pillay, CEO of Polyco.

“As a woman entrepreneur in the recycling sector, Nokuthula has demonstrated resilience, determination, and a deep commitment to empowering others. She works closely with waste reclaimers, creates income opportunities, and inspires youth and women to see waste as a valuable resource rather than a problem.”

“The Packa-Ching trailer marks a major milestone for our organisation,” said Nokuthula. “For years, we’ve worked to show that recycling can create real opportunities for our community. This trailer will help us support more waste reclaimers, expand our collection services and strengthen the recycling initiatives we’ve built with local residents. It also allows us the opportunity to reach more schools, including Deaf schools across South Africa, helping youth see that protecting the environment can also create livelihoods and build stronger communities.”

Through this support, Polyco once again reaffirms its commitment to investment that can meaningfully shift South Africa’s recycling and circular economy, by backing the women and communities already doing the work on the ground.