Newly released audited data has shown that South Africa’s longest-standing producer responsibility organisation (PRO) Petco achieved a 64% collection and 60% recycling rate for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) beverage bottles placed on the market by its members last year.

This exceeds the legislated 58% requirement for post-consumer PET recycling.

Since 2004, the organisation has been administering the voluntary collection and recycling of PET bottles and jars, and their associated labels and closures, on behalf of its members.

In 2023, which represents the second year of the country’s now-mandatory extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation, Petco achieved 98% of legislated targets set by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s (DFFE) for these products by volume.

The EPR regulations require that packaging producers – brand owners, retailers and importers – take responsibility for the full life cycle of their post-consumer packaging so that it does not end up polluting the environment or in a landfill.

Members include brand owners such as Unilever, Tiger Brands, Twizza, The Beverage Company, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, as well as retailers Pick n Pay and Woolworths.

Further, Petco last year diversified its focus by including new member Tetra Pak and its customers, establishing an EPR scheme for liquid board packaging (LBP), and started to build a sustainable value chain for these cartons.

In one year, Petco achieved 80% of the legislated recycling target for LBP during what it refers to in its yearly report as the set-up phase.

To stimulate the collection of this packaging, the organisation also grew the number of active buy-back centres in the value chain from seven to 32, and increased the price paid for LBP on the ground.

Petco CEO Cheri Scholtz said on June 25 that the organisation had been building a sustainable value chain for post-consumer PET packaging in South Africa for almost two decades and was working to develop a circular economy for this packaging.

“We’ve now taken everything we’ve learned over our 19-year journey with PET and applied our experience to building a sustainable model for LBP. This is in line with our expanded vision to drive circularity within the broader packaging value chain,” she said.

The combined results for PET and LBP also indicate that Petco’s collection and recycling efforts last year on behalf of its members saved 64 100 m³ of landfill space, while alleviating 314 500 t of carbon emissions associated with virgin material production.

Petco’s efforts also provided infrastructure support to buy-back centres that helped sustain 910 employment opportunities and the livelihoods of more than 8 000 waste pickers. It also saw 77 recycling workshops and three accredited business training courses conducted nationwide, drawing almost 6 000 participants.

In addition, Petco’s efforts supported 58 municipalities countrywide and two national and nine provincial departments with collection and recycling initiatives.

Scholtz said the yearly figures were about more than just statistics but rather demonstrated how Petco had contributed to the economy, sustained income opportunities for ordinary South Africans and prevented packaging from entering the environment.

Last year, Petco invested more than R70-million in the collection and recycling value chain, enabling contracted recyclers to buy R309-million in post-consumer packaging from collection businesses.

“We have a dedicated team on the ground in each province, working with corporate partners and various tiers of government, as well as waste pickers and collectors, to advance the collection of recyclable packaging, particularly those of interest to Petco members,” Scholtz said.

She added the organisation had supported 100 collection projects countrywide – inclusive of waste pickers, small, medium-sized and microenterprises and cooperatives – with equipment such as baling machines, trailers, trolleys, scales and personal protective equipment to improve the quality and quantity of their collections.

“For us, the EPR targets are not a burden. They present a real opportunity to assist our members in advancing South Africa’s circular economy by strengthening every single link in the value chain, no matter how big or small,” Scholtz said.