"It may take a little bit of effort at first but once you have a simple system in place at your home or office, it becomes second nature as opposed to another laborious chore," says Ursula Henneberry from the Paper Recycling Association of South Africa (PRASA).
With only 5% of households in South Africa recycling their paper, Henneberry agrees that we need to make it easier and more convenient for consumers to recycle. PRASA along with other members of the Recycling Action Group are working with local government to implement a two-bag system for households and establish formalised recycling systems.
"There is also a common notion that discarding recyclables among your household waste allows waste pickers on rubbish dumps to earn more money," adds Henneberry. "In the case of paper, this could not be further from the truth. By the time recyclable paper gets to a landfill site it could be too contaminated to be of any value to the waste picker." For recovered paper to fetch a good price for the recycling collector, it needs to be clean and dry.
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