The Brownie Points “Good Economy” initiative has created incredible opportunities for people working on the Litterboom Projects throughout South Africa.
South Africa (25 May 2023) – When Brownie Points put together its extensive plan to offer experience and opportunity to hundreds of applicants around South Africa in the form of The Good Economy Initiative, it was of a great privilege for the team at The Litterboom Project to be included in these plans.
Josh Redman, the Litterboom Project Operations Manager, says the team strongly believes that caring for the environment and the opportunities available in the waste space can go hand in hand.
“We currently have a strong need for placing staff in the environment to deal with and collect waste that is wrongly disposed of, but while they are collecting this waste they are taught about the different material streams and the value that is attached to those materials.”
There is a lot of opportunity in the recycling industry as well as the waste beneficiation space and a big focus of the project is to expose candidates to what is possible with post-consumer waste.
“We encourage this economy for plastic to drive up the value for waste and change the perception that it is waste, but rather that it is a valuable resource.”
The Litterboom Project deployed applicants to various sites across Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town. Most of the applicants were integrated into existing full-time teams who had experience working in rivers and communities, whereas other teams were created under the management of a skilled team leader or a regional manager.
Opportunity Inspires!
One of the highlights would be how the young team in the Waterloo community north of Durban have been inspired by their environment. Beyond their work they are doing cleaning pollution out of the rivers and community, they are spreading the word about the importance of looking after the natural resource that surrounds them.
“It is really inspiring to see their passion for the work they are doing and we hope that this is just a start for these guys.”
Between the two small teams in Waterloo and the neighbouring community on the upper Umdloti River they have managed to clear 11 tons of waste out of the environment since the beginning of the year and roughly 50% of that has been recycled.
“Our teams down in Cape Town have been exceptional too and purely with their collection figures show that they care greatly for the work they are doing.”
They have three teams in Cape Town, all working on the Black River on different stretches and between the teams there is an impressive 4 tons of plastic waste removed from the environment every month.
“We are really proud of the work these guys are doing there and their understanding that the work they are doing as a collective is making a difference to the quality of this river system. There is no doubt that there is more work to be done, but these incredible guys and girls are working tirelessly to make a difference.”
“One of our participants that was concentrating his work in the Umgeni River has now been hand picked out of the collection teams to be included in a benificiation program that is running in Durban. This is a a program which is still at infancy stage but we are soon to expand on. This is the exciting part of things for us because we begin to offer more opportunities like this as we expand this training facility. He has had the opportunity now to be involved in the complete process of which waste that has been collected from or teams gets transformed into a valuable product. The process ofcollection, washing, shredding, melting and injection moulding into the final product.
It has been a great experience working with these applicants and we look forward to sharing more with them and potentially working alongside them after the Good. Economy Initiative comes to a close.” – Josh Redman, the Litterboom Project Operations Manager.
You can find out more about the Litterboom Project here.
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