Recycling is the way of the future

THE landfill sites in Windhoek are filling rapidly and reaching their maximum capacity but each Windhoek resident can help by participating in recycling.

By recycling people can help in putting valuable materials back into the manufacturing stream. Private refuse collectors Rent-A-Drum have been in the recycling business for the past ten years and they recently started a pilot project in conjunction with the Windhoek Municipality. They started in the Avis, Ludwigsdorf, Klein Windhoek, Luxury Hill and Eros suburbs and removed 40 tons of recyclable material in the month of November alone.This is an increase of 12 tons since they started in September. Households are supplied with clear plastic bags in which they can place recyclable materials and put them out with their municipal wheelie bins for collection.Rent-A-Drum collects the bags free of charge and issues new ones every week.The full bags are taken to Rent-A-Drum’s premises where they are loaded onto a conveyor belt and sorted into 14 different containers.There are four basic recyclable materials namely glass, plastic, paper and tins. At Rent-A-Drum they are sorted into different colours and types of plastic and paper. Once the containers are full, the materials are compacted and sent to recycling plants in South Africa. The plastic is sent to Namibia Polymer Recyclers at Okahandja.’We believe in the recycling process as the whole world is going green and we all need to do our part in protecting the environment and the planet,’ says the owner of Rent-A-Drum, Gys Louw. He estimates that between 60 and 70 per cent of the households in the target areas are currently recycling and the number is increasing.’We are inundated with calls from people living in other suburbs asking us to collect their recyclables so we have now started with Suiderhof, Kleine Kuppe, Cimbebasia and Olympia.’Next year the company will roll out the recycling project to the rest of Windhoek, Khomasdal and Katutura. In an ordinary household between 60 to 80 per cent of all the waste is recyclable.The company has also come up with a new project for businesses, called ‘File 13’, to collect waste paper. Rent-A-Drum empties the boxes once a week free of charge.Companies that would like to recycle but are concerned about their confidential documents can take them to Rent-A-Drum and watch while they are shredded before being bundled and shipped off to South Africa. Currently about 70 tons of recyclable materials a day are sent to South Africa.’This is all waste which would have ended up at the Kupferberg landfill,’ says Louw.The company has branches at Tsumeb, Ondangwa and Swakopmund and hope to introduce household recycling to Swakopmund in the near future.

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