The Sunday Mail
South Africa: investing in tech
South Africa has invested heavily in recycling of waste.
Most waste management companies have invested in smart technologies which facilitate prompt service.
Companies such as PET Recycling Company (PETCO) has a 65 percent post-consumer recycling rate in South Africa.
Residents of Motherwell, a township in Nelson Mandela Bay, turned a former illegal dumpsite into a vegetable garden that has also been helping to feed those who have lost their jobs due to Covid-19.
The garden has created employment in the community.
Others have established a social recycling project called Re-Trade that supports around 60 informal waste pickers.
The waste pickers can trade in their collected waste materials for food, clothing and other essential items at the six-year-old local recycling centre.
Columbia: Recycle and get a reward
No, not by simply telling its citizens about the virtues of recycling, but by actually incentivising and giving rewards for every recycled item.
Every time you deposit a transparent plastic bottles (PET) or the caps, you receive a coupon offered by associated companies called Ecopartners.
One can receive restaurant coupons, movie tickets or even shopping coupons.
As for all the plastic that is collected, they are just sent to recycling plants instead of landfills.
Indonesia: Trash for free health care
Malang, a city in Indonesia, generates more than 55 000 tonnes of waste every day.
It was also a city where a majority of people did not have health insurance.
These two issues may seem unconnected, but Dr Gamala Albinsaid, a healthcare entrepreneur and chief executive of the health company Indonesia Medika saw this as a huge social opportunity.
He created Garbage Clinical Insurance which let people trade garbage for medical services and medicines.
This scheme aims to tackle both poverty and waste in Indonesia. The scheme inspires low-income households to recycle their trash because by doing so they will be able to finance their health micro-insurance.
The clinic takes in the trash from people and sells it to recyclers for recycling.
The money collected from recyclers is then spent on giving people basic health insurance.
Sweden: Taking out the trash
It sounds incredible, but Sweden has run out of trash and is actually asking other countries for their garbage so as it can keep its recycling plants running.
Less than 1 percent of Sweden’s household waste goes into the landfill dump; the rest is recycled in different ways.
The 32 waste management plants in Sweden today produce heat for 810 000 Swedish households and electricity for about 250 000 private houses.
The country has adopted a recycling policy that funnels all the energy generated by burning waste into the national heating network.
This provides an efficient way to heat homes through the freezing Swedish winter.
Uganda: An amusement park
from trash
Artist and environmentalist Ruganzu Bruno has created an amusement park for children living in the slums of Kampala in Uganda.
However, this is no ordinary amusement park, but one built entirely by waste.
Bruno first collected all the waste generated by the villagers there and then, with their help, refashioned the waste to make swings and life-size board games.
The goal of the artist is to make more than 100 similar amusement parks in other parts of Uganda.
