Formalising and integrating the Informal Waste Pickers into the Waste Economy it’s a quantum leap step that Mogale City Local Municipality and its partners Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) eWASA, took this week on Tuesday, when 25 registered Informal Waste Pickers and Buyback Centres within Mogale city received trolleys and bulk bags.
In the true spirit of reducing waste to landfill sites and creating wastrepreneurs, the Reclaimers ‘Bulk Bags and Trolleys’, which are fitted with a trailer, brakes and reflectors, replacing their rickety, unwieldy and makeshift inventions, courtesy of eWASA.
In this partnership eWASA is adopting Waste Pickers in the city, providing them training in recycling and giving them tools of trade. While at the same time is working closely with the municipality to assess requirements for infrastructure, equipment, and resources to manage waste effectively and drive recycling projects.
The Executive Manager for Integrated Environmental Management Department (DIEM), Madikana Thenga, said the partnership is aimed at ensuring that the recycling community is supported, and Reclaimers can make an honest and decent living.
“We are happy and proud as the municipality that today we are seating here all because of a phone call that cemented the relationship between Mogale City Municipality and eWASA. We want to make sure that extended producer responsibility initiative is taken beyond the central business district to other areas of the city,” Thenga said.
This ground-breaking partnership advocates for collaboration to drive waste management and recycling programmes that will give birth to entrepreneurship, new jobs and opportunities that will uplift the youth, women and people living with disabilities.
Dumisani Siziba, eWASA Head of Strategic, Municipal and SMME Projects, was equally elated and said: “I’m excited to be in a partnership with Mogale City. So, ours is to extend our relationship such that we protect our environment and to create opportunities out of waste.
“We also want to capacitate waste pickers because they are an important thread in the waste industry. So we are very much excited to be in a space where waste pickers are now recognised as positive contributors within the economic space of our country.”
So far, eWASA has contributed more than R1,1 million on recycling containers, personal protective equipment as well as the trolleys and the bulk bags. Through this initiative, 36 green jobs were created at the Luipaardsvlei Landfill Site, in Mogale City.
Member pf the Mayoral Committee responsible for DIEM Xolile Mkruquli, said: “This is an opportunity that our registered waste pickers should embrace with both hands. There is job creation and plenty of opportunities in this, and we wish our beneficiaries well in their future endeavours in this project and looking forward to seeing them prosper.
(Insert) MMC Livingstone Mkruquli congratulating Harry Moiloa of Itsose Buy-Back Centre, while Executive Manager Madikana Thenga (left), Dumisani Siziba and Maria Mandiwana (obscurrd) are observing. Photo by Kgothatso Molatlhegi
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