A survey on the 2014 performance of the South African plastics industry has shown that 1.4-million tons of plastics from domestic production and imported materials were converted over the year, remaining flat on volumes seen in the prior year.
The results, released by Plastics SA this week, further revealed that the conversion rates – measured in tonnages – for certain types of plastics had increased, while others had decreased, owing to the impact of light-weighting plastics packaging, which had a marked increase on South Africa’s consumption rate.
Moreover, the impact of an industry-wide initiative to divert plastics from the country’s landfills had seen gains, with 315 600 t, or 22%, diverted from landfills in 2014 – a 9% improvement on the prior year.
Of this, 284 520 t, or 90.2%, were mechanically recycled in South Africa, while 31 087 t, or 9.8 %, were exported for recycling elsewhere.
“The tonnages exported from South Africa [for export] are causing some concerns among the domestic plastics recyclers,” said the organisation.
Despite improvements in diversion from landfill, the proportion of plastics recycled in South Africa had decreased from 97.6% in 2009 to 90.2% in 2014, with the majority of these plastics used locally to manufacture new products, such as packaging, building and industrial products and pipes.
Some 62.7% of all materials recycled originated from post-consumer sources, while 17.2% originated from post-industrial sources.
Meanwhile, the formal employment provided by plastics recycling increased by 34% year-on-year to 6 037 workers, while informal employment rose to 47 420 workers, bringing the total number of jobs sustained through plastics recycling to 53 457 – an increase of 11.4% since 2013.