550,000 kgs of organic food waste is the weight of around 100 elephants. What happens to it all? Something that could become pretty powerful.
Cape Town, South Africa (04 May 2025) — Food waste, like many other forms of waste, is in most cases, destined for landfills. But, what the City of Cape Town shared it did with 550,000kgs of organic food waste didn’t see the heaps left to rot and decay. Instead, it diverted the waste for good.
Not leftovers from a massive feast; the the 550,000 kgs (the weight of around 100 elephants) was collected over two years by the City’s Urban Waste Management Directorate.
The plan was to use the organic waste as part of a pilot research project at selected Public Transport Interchanges in Langa and Khayelitsha with a goal to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. 395,000 kgs of food waste was collected from vendors since the project started, while 157,000 kgs were collected from around 2,000 households.
According to the COCT, the collected waste is diverted from these projects and taken to the Bellville Compost Plant. There, it is produced into compost, which is then sold back to City departments and even the public (the City has been distributing free home composting bins to locals).
By turning the waste into compost, the project is not only supporting resources for home composting sustainably, but also fast-tracking the Cape Government’s ban to landfill of all organic waste by 2027.
Join the Home Composting Movement
- Get a free bin! Look out for rollouts coming to your area by checking out the home composting container rollout schedule for updates.
- You can find tips to start home composting, here.
Sources: Suppled—COCT
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