The guests represented companies of plastic recyclers, plastics converters, brand owners, retailers, and producer responsibility organisations (PROs).
Bronze, silver and gold were awarded in five categories for Best Recycled Plastic Products, namely; construction and building products, agriculture and related products, household, leisure and consumer-related products, personal care products, and other rigid packaging.
The judges under the leadership of Plastics SA selected winners against the criteria of; uniqueness, difficulty to recycle, technical achievement, marketability, fit for purpose and tonnages recycled. Special emphasis was given to marketability as consumer involvement and buy-in were seen as the new frontier in the development of recycling industries.
Mpact 1 Sep 2023
Gold winners and their products in each category, in order, were; Supreme Mouldings – wall panels, SFG Technologies - planter box, Incredapeg, MyPlas / Mpact / Unilever - Organics shampoo flip top lid, and PolyOak – Contan bucket.
The overall winner was selected from these gold winners, which went to the SFG Technologies planter box. This product boasts a well-built, 70% recycled content planter box that is robust and increases crop productivity in a water and resource-efficient way.
The boxes are being produced in partnership with the Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture to equip emerging farmers and low-income homes to produce crops. There have already been 36,000 of these boxes produced and they are planning to expand to other provinces. The value that this project has for the reputation of recycled plastics is invaluable.
The event also saw the launch of the Sapro Platinum Design Principles certificate, which acknowledges best-in-class design for recycling. The first Platinum Design Principles badge was awarded to Spar for their all-white, all-HDPE milk bottle.
Special mentions from the judges went to the Viro Solutions juice bottle for including consumers in the circularity journey of the packaging and the Do More Foundation for their B.Blox toy which creates artisan jobs, recycles HIPS and makes toys for ECD childcare centres.
The Sapro Best Recycled Plastic Product Awards would not have been possible without our generous sponsors. Platinum sponsorships came from Polyco and Erema. Our silver sponsor was Winelands Plastics & Imports. The other sponsors were, Plastics SA, Packaging SA, Petco, and Hume Machinery. Wine was sponsored by Spier and the award certificate frames were sponsored by Supreme Mouldings.
Construction and building products
