South Africans are increasingly aware of the detrimental effects that all plastics have on the natural environment. Plastic pollution is a major contributor to global warming and has devastating repercussions on ecosystems around the world.
The South African Plastic Pact has been set up by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to bring role players like businesses, governments and NGOs together and to work toward achieving an answer to plastic waste and pollution issues across the country. The City of Cape Town signed the pact and was the first municipality in South Africa to do so.
The South African Plastics Pact founding members include:
– The Clicks Group
– Coca-Cola Africa
– Danone
– Distell
– HomeChoice
– Massmart
– Myplas
– Nampak Rigids
– Pick n Pay
– Polyoak
– Polyplank
– Shoprite Group
– SPAR
– Spur Holdings
– The Foschini Group
– Tigerbrands
– Tuffy
– Unilever
– ADDIS
– Waste Plan
– Woolworths.
In a statement, City’s Mayco Member for Water and Waste, Xanthea Limberg said: ‘The City of Cape Town is delighted to become the first municipality not just in the country, but worldwide to pledge its support.’
She continued: ‘The City’s role, as a supporting member, is to contribute to the development of solutions, amplify anti-plastic messages and cascade best practice. While the City can’t in its own capacity make commitments towards achieving the pact’s targets, it fully supports the initiative and its embedded principles. Goals, however, will not be achieved without collaborative industry action.
‘It’s encouraging to see the growing shift towards more sustainable consumer choices globally, with society generally becoming more aware of the environmentally damaging effects of single-use plastics and excessive packaging. The SA Plastics Pact marks an important step closer to seeing greater success in this space locally, and the City is looking forward to playing its part in realising the goals contained in it.’
The pact aims to change the way plastic products and packaging are designed, used and reused. This will essentially assist in preventing plastics from entering the environment. The pact sets out some ambitious targets to be met by 2025, which include:
– 100% of plastic packaging being reusable, recyclable or compostable (in a closed-loop system)
– 70% of plastic packaging effectively recycled
– 30% average post-consumer recycled content across all plastic packaging
In a statement WWF said: ‘The South African Plastics Pact will be the first African Plastics Pact to join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s global Plastics Pact network of national and regional initiatives that bring together businesses, governments and NGOs in a country or region behind the common vision of the New Plastics Economy. The Plastics Pact network is a unique platform to exchange learnings and best practices across the globe, to accelerate the transition to a circular economy for plastic.
‘By working towards this vision in South Africa, local action taken by The South African Plastics Pact is aligned with the global ambitions of more than 400 signatories of the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, who are united behind a common vision of a circular economy for plastic, in which it never becomes waste or pollution.
‘Following the launch of the South African Plastics Pact in January 2020, WWF, with support from WRAP and strategic input from the Steering Committee, will develop a roadmap to achieve the set of clear and time-bound group 2025 targets. The South African Plastics Pact will identify specific working groups and other activities required to overcome potential obstacles to achieving the targets in a South African context, and progress will be publicly reported upon each year.’
Image: Unsplash
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