“It disappoints me when I look in the rubbish bin in the kitchen area and see that someone has just
thrown away a cardboard egg box or a plastic Jungle Oats packet when they could easily be put in the recycling bins,” Matome Modiba says.
The recycling programme is more than just a nice to have, it’s a social responsibility and the Tribunal is required to include its recycling figures in its Annual Report.
“If a person throws away just one can of cooldrink a day in the bin, it works out to be 1kg a week that we are throwing away of an item that could be recycled.”
“The recycling programme started soon after I joined the Tribunal in 2013. It was being done but it was then a small office. When I joined about eight other people joined so members increased substantially.”
The office does its best to procure recycled products in the form of stationery to support companies making use of everyday objects that others have thrown away.
“Everyone knows the benefit of recycling – we are constantly being told that our landfills are full. It’s costing our municipalities millions of rand annually to clean up these sites, and who wants to live next to a landfill site? Not to mention the impact on tourism when visitors are faced with abandoned rubbish lying around.
“The truth is that every single person makes a difference in reducing the amount of waste that is being dumped.”
Matome said he has noticed a change in the attitude of staff. “People’s attitudes are slowly changing, we have some way to go but we are slowly getting there. We can see this in the figures we are recording monthly.”
All recycled products collected in the office are weighed monthly and taken down to an onsite recycling plant where four staff members sort out the waste from departments and organisations situated on the DTI campus. The sorted products are then collected by company Waste It.
Matome said a campaign is to be launched in the next quarter to remind staff to think twice before throwing an item in the bin, and to ask themselves whether that item could in fact be reused.
Some of the common items thrown away:
· Yoghurt containers
· Cereal boxes or empty plastic cereal boxes
· Cardboard takeaway containers or their carrier bags
· Cooldrink tins
· Plastic knives and forks