GREENer HOUSE

Why are these men smiling? A wheelbarrow full of cans will only get them R2.86 at Collect-a-Can.

My article in the current issue of the Mail & Guardian points out that Collect-a-Can is not living up to its reputation as an energetic catalyst for recycling in South Africa. Instead of paying a premium price to the hawkers who clean up our trash looking for recyclables, Collect-a-can is paying less than the market price and profiting on the export of cans to steel mills in Pakistan.

So where does that leave the consumer who wants to do the right thing with his or her cans? One lesson I have learned is that food cans are actually somewhat more recyclable than drink cans. The food tins that make it to Collect-a-Can have their tin removed for reuse and are melted back into high-quality steel here in South Africa. Drink cans are not likely to end up as new drink cans. They meet a variety of fates, including being used to process cobalt in Botswana and going into lower-quality steels.

I know that the temptation is stronger to throw out a food tin, because of food stuck inside. I pulled one out of my kitchen bin just yesterday. Resist. All of your tins are worth recycling. Aluminium tins, including some deodorant and hair-care aerosols, are by far the most recyclable of all. I have written about this before.

I will continue to recycle drink cans as well. I would prefer “cradle-to-cradle” recycling, which means that the end product is of the same quality as the original, but this is not always possible. Converting hiqh-quality South African steel into lower-quality steel in Pakistan or even into a flux used to process cobalt in Botswana is better than wasting the resource entirely. Since global warming is indeed “global,” it doesn’t matter too much whether the energy is saved in Pakistan or Vanderbijlpark. (From the point of view of Eskom’s crisis, it does matter, but there is little you or I can do to resolve technical steelmaking issues.)

At the shops, if you must decide between disposable plastic, glass and steel packaging for beverages, there is not a strong reason to choose one over the other, so buy the one that is easiest for you to recycle. You might experiment by leaving a bag of each next to your dustbins on collection morning and see which (if any) a hawker will take. I know they will take aluminium and office paper, but in my neighbourhood, the ordinary bottles and cans are usually left alone. So I deliver them to my municipal Pikitup depot when I take grass clippings and leaves for composting. Please report back to Greenerhouse what the street collectors will take in your suburb.

Glass collection bins are becoming easier to find, thanks to The Glass Recycling Company, which has a list of bottle banks here. PET is more valuable per kilogram than any of them, though a kilogram of PET takes up a lot more space. Better by far is to find returnable glass bottles, which are available for the most popular brands from SAB Miller and Coca-Cola. And best of all, of course, is tap water.