Multimillion-rand recycling boost

© Chakkapong Benjasuwan – 123RF.com

The cash, which was made available to the project by the Department of Trade and Industry's employment creation fund, will also fund three recycling collection centres, in Stutterheim, Dutywa and Somerset East.

The polyfibre project makes use of plastic and pineapple waste, which is then moulded and manufactured into window and door frames, outdoor furniture and utility bags.

The project was initially funded by the ECDC to the tune of R2.2m, which assisted in acquiring SA Bureau of Standards certification for the fibre, as well as establishing recycling centres in Grahamstown and Port Alfred.

Through these facilities - known as buy-back centres - waste material is collected, bought and transformed into useful materials.

Project head Phakamisa George said the factory and related facilities would only be fully operational once registration of the company had been finalised.

The company will be called PolyFibre Pty Ltd.

George said the ECDC had first been approached by the Ndlambe municipality after officials had identified people who had been scavenging at a waste site.

The municipality wanted to know if there were any projects the people could get involved in.

George said equipment was then bought to make it easier to handle the waste plastic.

"We realised that using only waste plastic material, the furniture was becoming too brittle, so we partnered with technical people and came up with a formula to strengthen the materials using pineapple fibres," George said.

The project had already created more than 100 jobs, both temporary and permanent.

George said the initial project and job creation had resulted in large amounts of plastic being collected.

George, who also heads the ECDC's risk capital unit, said the aim of that unit was to provide capital to someone who had a marketable idea, with the aim of helping develop it, make it commercially viable and once that had been achieved, convert the ECDC's involvement into equity.

The ECDC became involved in the fibre project at the same time as the Department of Economic Development and Environmental Affairs had requested that ways of funding the establishment of buy-back centres located near solid waste sites be investigated.

ECDC chief executive Ndzondelelo Dlulane said: "This project will be a combination of the waste products of two programmes already in existence.

"One is the restructuring of the pineapple industry by exploring opportunities involving its factory and farm waste which is co-funded by ECDC.

"The other is establishing more waste buy-back centres.

"The funding advanced to the project is one of the examples where the ECDC uses its innovation facility to cultivate a pipeline of existing yet underdeveloped black industrialist talent by providing the necessary financial and non-financial support.

"In 2015-16, the innovation unit spent R6m testing and piloting the ideas of small businesses," Dlulane said.

"In turn, ECDC attracted R19.8m of third-party funding for these projects."

The corporation had also funded an angora rabbit pilot project with R850,000.

Further, the corporation had invested R750,000 in extending and renovating a Whittlesea wine estate, established in 2006.

Three years later, the estate produced its first harvest.

Source: Herald