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A national plan for a new recycling industry: more than three thousand jobs created over the past two years.
The real black diamonds of South Africa? Tyres, says Stanley Mangoegape, the manager of Redisa, a South African organisation for recycling and development that prepared a national plan for the recycling of vehicle tyres. In two years of activity, 51 storage depots and 3 thousand jobs have been created, and over 200 small enterprises have been bolstered by this project. These are the wonders of the circular economy, that respects the environment while allowing the creation of a new industry sector. This initiative, by the way, was developed without any public funding.
In two years Redisa has reached the break-even point by monetising the collection and disposal of tyres, while also creating thousands of jobs in poor communities and giving life to several micro businesses. The value chain of Redisa consists of pickers, who collect tyres from dumps, transporters, who collect the tyres from pickers and from tyre dealers, and recyclers, together with various treatment plants.
In South Africa there are currently already 80 thousand informal waste pickers who collect plastics, metals, paper and glass. Redisa manages to help a part of them with a better organisation of their work and regular payments on bank accounts. Redisa pays the pickers directly, avoiding the problem of possible frauds by transporters.
The pilot program by Redisa also helped the establishment of 54 cooperatives, each of which has 5 members. These cooperatives work directly at waste sites. Redisa offers them management assistance: many of these businesses find it difficult to carry on because their members often lack the time or experience required to make them function properly.
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