Owing to an all-time-high demand for plastic bottles in the Western Cape region, the province’s recycling capacity is at maximum production and unable to process the additional influx of bottles.

In an attempt to overcome this challenge and to prevent additional bottles being sent to landfill sites, recycling company PETCo, which is an associate member of Oasis water, and recycling centre Extrupet are transporting 15 t of baled bottles to the Extrupet facility in Gauteng for processing.

PETCo and Extrupet joint-MD and chairperson Chandru Wadhwani said in a statement on Tuesday that "the pressing driver here is to ensure that the extra volume of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles that have found their way to the Western Cape on the back of the water crisis find a home in a recycled product.”

He added that, just by way of scale, when 15 t is loaded on the truck (sponsored by Oasis Water), half a million bottles will be recycled that otherwise wouldn’t have been.

“This for me is the ultimate value of this initiative and companies like Oasis Water need to be commended – they set the perfect example of what extended producer responsibility entails. But for the support of companies like Oasis Water, these bottles would ultimately be landfilled or worse, end up in the oceans.”

Oasis Water group director Naas du Preez, meanwhile, added that, with the influx of bottled water into Cape Town, the company believes that, as a responsible brand, it must assist and be depended upon to take care of the environment and has sponsored the transport as a sign of goodwill.

“We are also challenging fellow bottlers and players in the industry to do the same and assist with keeping recycling responsible."

However, for the time being, PETCo noted that it is monitoring the situation closely to determine whether additional transportation will be needed to ease the burden on the Western Cape recycling capacity, and encourages other companies to offer financial support should additional transport become necessary.