A couple of months ago when Day Zero looked like a harsh reality Capetonians stocked up on bottled water. Now with Day Zero being pushed out to next year, all this bottled water is being consumed and the plastic bottles discarded creating above normal plastic waste.
One of the less obvious effects of the drought & fears of a looming Day Zero was the surge in bottled water sales which has resulted in abnormal plastic waste. With PET recycling rates up to 55% Cape Town’s largest PET bottle recycling plant has reached capacity and it now faced with the prospect for having to send this plastic to landfill or find an alternative option.
South African National Bottle Water Association and the PET Recycling Company (PETCO) reached out to their partners for help.
Woolworths responded to this request and has sponsored the transportation of 20 tons of squashed PET bottles equating to approximately 500 000 bottles to Extrupet’s larger Gauteng processing plant.
Rather than redirect this plastic to landfills Woolworths has sponsored the transport of 500 000 plastic bottles to a Gauteng recycling facility.
“With increased bottled water sales in the Cape Town area we realised that this would put additional pressure on local recycling facilities. South African National Bottle Water Association and the PET Recycling Company (PETCO) confirmed this and approached us for assistance.
We didn’t want these bottles to be redirected to landfills or end up on our streets so we offered to cover the costs to transport these bottles to Extrupet’s larger Gauteng recycling facility,” responded Feroz Koor, Woolworths Holdings Group Head of Sustainability.
”We welcome this support from Woolworths as 500 000 plastic bottles equates to approximately 20 tons of plastic that has arrived at our Gauteng facility for processing and recycling back into Woolworths food packaging,“ confirmed Chandru Wadhwani, Joint Managing Director for Extrupet and PETCO board member.
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