Project Up is rolling out innovative technology which assists recycling buy-back centres. Supplied image.
Johannesburg - An innovative recycling pilot project is making use of the blockchain (a system in which a record of transactions are maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network) to digitise and record transactions between waste pickers and buy-back centres.
The move is revolutionising the buying and selling of recyclable materials. Project Up, an initiative of the PET Recycling Company (PETCO), uses BanQu blockchain technology to build a national digital record of recyclables, collected by waste pickers and sold to buy-back centres.
For the first time, buy-back centres are able to digitally track the sorts of materials coming in and the value of those materials to their businesses, while waste pickers, for their part, have digital proof of the revenue they receive. The project, now under way for just more than a year and funded by the Coca Cola Foundation, has already yielded positive results, helping grassroots businesses integrate into the formalised waste recycling sector and increasing the volume of recyclable plastics and other materials received by buy-back centres.
CEO of Hendrina Recycling in Mpumalanga, Refilwe Ramadikela said interim data indicates that the introduction of the technology is not only helping to integrate the informal recycling sector with the formal recycling sector, but is also helping grow the volumes of recyclable plastics and other materials purchased by the buy-back centres.
“I thought the app would be a lot of work, but it makes things much more efficient. With regard to data capturing, and the ins and outs and operations of my business, which I think is more important than anything,” said.
The national digital record enables them to pinpoint potential new recycling streams to focus on to grow their revenue.
“It allows us to have longevity because we know how to read the data. What are our trading volumes and how do we maintain them? If we drop, what can we do better? We can go back through our historical data records online and see what worked. I gained business insights that I didn’t think I needed but which have come in very useful,” Ramadikela said.
According to PETCO vice-chair and Coca-Cola’s sustainability director for Africa, David Drew, one of the key benefits of the BanQu system is the insights it provides into the waste economy.
“With more than R10 million worth of transactions representing more than 4 000 tons of recyclables, we are beginning to reach a point at which our data has sufficient scale and diversity to provide a credible basis for analysis. By looking at this data, we can not only begin to understand the market better but also use these insights to support and grow the informal waste economy,” said Drew.
He added that one of the more important relationships to understand was how factors like price and demand affected collection. The recycling industry has long known that bottles made of clear or blue PET polyethylene terephthalate – fetch a high price for waste pickers than green or amber PET. Interim BanQu data clearly shows the impact of this price differential on collection rates.
“The BanQu data shows that while clear or blue PET is estimated to represent around 85% of the beverage bottle market, it represents 92% of the post-consumer PET collected and traded on BanQu. This suggests that the price premium translates into a higher collection rate for clear bottles versus green and amber PET bottles, said Drew.
While price was a key driver of collection rates, Drew said it was also clear that this was not the only relevant factor.
“The BanQu data also consistently shows that K4 cardboard represents the highest fraction of recyclables traded in terms of both volume (46%) and value (32%), which are both higher than cardboard’s approximate share of the packaging market (26%). This is interesting because the pricing of K4 is generally very similar to that of amber PET and significantly less than clear PET,”he said.
In contrast, aluminium beverage cans are typically the most valuable recyclable traded but represent only around 1% of volume and 3% of the value.
“As such, we can conclude that price is not the only factor driving collection, with factors like availability, tradeability, and consistency in demand for materials playing an important role in determining what is collected and what isn't,” Drew concluded.
Improved data is just one benefit of the project; another, surprise benefit has been the improved working relationships between buy-back centres and waste pickers.