On 18 March, AST Recycling launched an e-waste recycling bin at Jackal Creek golf estate, in what will be the first of many stations nationally, to help battle the rising tide of e-waste in South Africa. 

In general, people want to be able to recycle e-waste, but they just don’t know where to go to deal with this fast-growing waste stream. As with other successful recycling initiatives, e-waste recycling drop-off points have to be close and convenient for people to use them.

At the golf estate Jackal Creek, residents already participate in the recycling of household waste, being committed to maintaining the beautiful surroundings in which they live, as well as the broader environment. Estate manager Johann van Niekerk had received a number of requests from among the estate’s 5,000 residents for an e-waste recycling solution as well. He engaged AST Recycling who launched an e-waste recycling bin at Jackal Creek on 18 March, to commemorate Global Recycling Day.

“The Jackal Creek estate management association care about the environment that we all live in and we are pleased to be part of any initiative that can contribute to making the world a better place,” says Johann. “In Jackal Creek, we identified a need for an e-waste solution and, together with our other efforts to recycle paper and glass, this project will have a positive benefit for our environment.”

The AST e-waste bin is custom designed to securely contain the waste until the bin is full, when the recycling company will send a truck to collect the contents. Rodney Peters, head of IT Asset Disposal Recycling, says that they are optimistic that this will be the first of many such installations around the country.

“There’s a huge gap in the market for recycling e-waste,” he says. “People know and understand that it’s important to recycle and properly dispose of potentially harmful electronic components, but finding a recycling point is nearly impossible. So we’re working on getting other estates involved, along with office parks and shopping centres.”

Being cognisant of issues around data security, AST Recycling has ensured that their e-waste bins are completely secure. Once the electronic devices or components are brought in for recycling, they are subjected to full data sanitisation, so that no information contained on them can fall into the wrong hands. All hard drives are destroyed – never to be reused.

“Another aspect that holds people back from recycling their e-waste is that they have concerns about data security, even when the machine is defunct or has been erased. These concerns are valid but if you use an AST Recycling bin, you can be confident that we will sanitise your device to European data management standards,” says Peters.

For AST Recycling, this isn’t just about doing good business. Peters believes that providing a countrywide e-waste recycling solution will contribute to reducing waste in landfills and reducing environmental harm.

“We are passionate about betting the public to be more responsible about recycling e-waste. By making it easy to recycle electronics, we believe that the environmental damage from this waste stream will be mitigated.”