Financial Mail and Business Day

Industry body broadens focus to all plastics

• Polyco responds to regulations, writes Lynette Dicey

In response to the new waste management regulations, the Polyolefin Responsibility Organisation (Polyco) announced in August that it had broadened its focus to all plastic types under the extended producer responsibility (EPR) regulations, to increase its support to producers to manage their product’s life cycle responsibly.

The new EPR regulations, which are due to be implemented from November 5, make it mandatory for producers to join a producer responsibility organisation (PRO) like Polyco, Fibre Circle, Petco, MetPac-SA and the Glass Recycling Company, among others, or form one themselves.

Either through their PROs or independent schemes, producers are now legally mandated to manage their products at end of life to grow the downstream reuse and recycling of their materials to achieve the published legislated targets.

Producers include not only packaging manufacturers but also brand owners, retailers, licensee agents and importers.

The challenge with these new EPR regulations, explains Polyco CEO Patricia Pillay, is producers who manufacture more than one type of plastic packaging were required to join more than one PRO to cover their full product range. As a result, Polyco made the decision to manage all plastic polymer types in its mandate.

Since its inception in 2011 Polyco has focused on making waste a valuable resource that works for the economy. Its aim is to grow the collection and recycling of plastic packaging in SA to reduce the amount of plastic packaging going to landfill and end plastic waste in the environment.

Established as a nonprofit organisation by a group of responsible polyolefin plastic packaging converters to deal with polymer identification codes 2, 4, 5 and 7, for the past decade Polyco has represented the largest polymer group in SA and has been the driving force behind 26,000 tons of polyolefin plastics recycled and 64,000 tons collected.

The decision to broaden its focus to cover all plastics means the organisation is now a onestop shop to improve the collection and recycling of all polymer types. To this end, the Polystyrene Association of SA and VinylLoop — the EPR arm of the Southern African Vinyls Association — merged its operations with those of Polyco with effect from September 1 2021.

Polyco business manager Quinton Williams explains that the organisation supports producers by growing plastic recycling through collaboration with multiple stakeholders along the recycling value chain, investment in recycling innovation and infrastructure in SA, and through educating both the industry and consumers about recycling.

The introduction of EPR regulations, he says, plays an important role in minimising the amount of waste that goes into landfill or that lands up in the environment. “Government has big targets to divert waste from landfill. SA’s EPR regulations — while not perfect — are a good starting point and a useful mechanism to achieve this.”

Despite the new regulations, SA still faces numerous challenges when it comes to recycling. “We don’t have enough collection or recycling facilities around the country,” says Williams. “Added to this we urgently need to grow the capacity of existing recycling companies, while creating demand for waste products.

“The challenge is for recycling to become more pervasive throughout the country, getting consumers to understand the process and to separate their recycling waste at source.”

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2021-09-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://tisobg.pressreader.com/article/281861531636405

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