Cape Town - Big South African brands such as Pick n Pay, Woolworths, Unilever, Tiger Brands and Coca-Cola are meeting the now-mandatory national targets when it comes to collecting and recycling plastic packaging in which their products are sold.

This is according to new data released by Petco, a producer responsibility organisation.

This data comes one year after the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s now-mandatory extended producer responsibility regulations, which came into effect with promulgation of the Section 18 amendment to the National Environmental Management: Waste Act.

This requires packaging producers – brand owners, retailers and importers – to comply with stipulated annual targets for the improved design, collection and recycling of post-consumer product packaging to move the country towards a more circular economy. Previously, this was voluntary for companies.

The audited data represents 2022 collection and recycling rates for the products Petco members have registered with the organisation, comprising mainly PET bottles, jars and their labels and closures.

In 2022, Petco members placed 121 369 tons of packaging on the South African market - mainly PET beverage bottles, home and personal care bottles, edible oil bottles, food bottles and jars, and their associated labels and closures.

Of this volume, 69%, or 83 967 tons of post-consumer packaging, was collected for recycling, with a total recycling rate of 66% achieved.

Petco CEO Cheri Scholtz said that while producer responsibility organisations struggled to come to grips with the year-one reporting requirements set by the DFFE, Petco used its 17 years of experience operating under a voluntary model to assist its members in transitioning to the mandatory EPR environment.

“The results we’ve achieved are due to the commitment of our members. We appreciate their partnership and inputs in navigating this new EPR space together. In combination, through our member declarations, regular recycler audits and bale sampling assessments, we are able to report with greater granularity,” said Scholtz.

Woolworths, Pick n Pay and others commended Petco for its progress in meeting the plastic collection and recycling targets and the hard work in the first year of EPR last year, which represents a significant shift from the previous voluntary framework.

Executive of the Pick n Pay Group’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Vaughan Pierce, said that since the implementation of the EPR regulations, Pick n Pay had worked closely with Petco and submitted more than 680 tons of PET beverage bottle declarations for calendar year of 2022, with a total of more than 1 000 tons in PET plastics.

“We managed to increase our diversion from landfill from 55% in 2021 to 62% in 2022,” he said.

A Woolworths spokesperson said: “Woolworths has been proactively engaged in a packaging improvement journey for several years in line with our vision of zero packaging waste to landfill which was announced over five years ago. As a result, thousands of our products have transitioned to recyclable packaging.”

kristin.engel@inl.co.za

Cape Argus

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Big SA brands are meeting the now-mandatory plastic collection and recycling targets