CAPITAL: The Voice of Business Issue 1, 2015 | Page 42

RECYCLING

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IT is estimated that the scrap generated by used aluminium beverage
cans (UBCs) in South Africa will increase the available aluminium scrap
for recycling by 50% over the next
five years.
The country’s switch to allaluminium beverage cans will bring
hundreds of millions of rands into the
economy, said Frank Bradford, Group
Executive: Metal Supply at Hulamin,
and Hulamin’s Inkanyezi project
represents a significant opportunity
for local scrap dealers and informal
recycling collectors.
UBCs have the highest value per
kilogram of all packaging scrap types
and are worth more than five times as
much as steel cans in terms of rands
per kilogram.
According to Hulamin’s projections,
the estimated R100m to R200m scrap
value flow into the economy as a
result of the countrywide switch to
all-aluminium beverage cans should
create the wealth equivalent of 3 000
to 5 000 entry-level jobs in the informal
sector. The potential revenue for
existing scrap collectors is estimated
to more than double in the next two
to three years, the company said.
In a review commissioned by
Hulamin, the Industrial Development
Corporation’s (IDC) Economic Unit
said that by 2017, more than 2
000 new full-time equivalent job
opportunities could be created by
the switch to all-aluminium beverage
cans and Hulamin’s UBC recycling
plan “should make a significant
contribution in terms of creating new
job opportunities and increasing
income to existing informal collectors”
,
the IDC said.

42

| Issue 1 | Capital

HOW TO
RECYCLE
ALUMINIUM CANS
BY supporting
an informal
waste collector you can
help a fellow
citizen, who
can make money from your used
aluminium beverage cans (UBCs).
Aluminium cans are one of the
most valuable packaging materials
and each scrap can is worth between five and 10 cents to a scrap
collector.
Find a collector in your area and
donate your UBCs to them.
If you can’t find an informal collector, you can:
• Donate them to a school or charity with a collection centre.
• Sell your cans to a buy-back centre. You can find one near you at
www.mywaste.co.za (These small
scrap-metal and packaging recyclers usually won’t want to bother
with quantities less than five kilograms, which is about 300 cans.)
• Take them to a drop-off centre.
Most garden-refuse dump sites will
take them. Collect-a-Can bins are
often provided at these sites.
• Use the recycling scheme in your
suburb, if you have one.
Just don’t put the cans in with your
household rubbish. This will doom
them to burial in a landfill site and
nobody will benefit.