SA company turns used plastic into pegs

Jay Caboz
A South African company is taking on the clothes peg industry one washing line at a time by transforming disposed plastic into multifunctional clothes pegs.

They call it the Increda-peg, and while it may not look anything like a normal clothes peg, its inventor, Brett Potgieter, says it can handle the job.

The pegs are made from 100% locally sourced recycled plastic and are more durable than normal pegs.

They can also be used for camping and gardening, and even to keep your pot from boiling over by hooking it to its side.

Key to its success is a design which does not need a metal spring, typically seen in most clothes pegs, which makes manufacturing them locally uncompetitive against the likes of mass producer China.

This was the lightbulb moment Potgieter came up with on a Saturday afternoon when watching rugby from his home in Pretoria.

“I couldn't believe something like this wasn't around. I got up and said 'I'm going to make one right now'. I started waltzing around the house, looking to see what I could make it out of.”

Which was right about when he turned into the kitchen coming across his wife's favourite Tupperware, the only plastic in the house which he could think would be able to handle the design.

“And I knew I was going to get into trouble, but I could see it was the only thing that could work, so I went for it. We're a family of five. I did a lot of washing, and I always wondered why there was never a hook. Because you had to hook up your underwear afterwards. And I thought that could save a lot of time.”

With this, the Increda-peg was born.

Months on and one sacrificed Tupperware container later, the business is a far cry from the garage operation it was.

Potgieter says they manufacture around 800 000 pegs a month.

“Luckily, [the peg] worked well with recycled plastic. A lot of other products must use virgin material to keep the properties of the plastic to be able to work. The colour black is part of the design. It sucks up the energy of the sun, and stays flexible. And we are guessing it could probably last 10 years,” he says.

The 57-year-old Potgieter, who started out as a dental technician, says he has always tinkered with inventions.

One invention, a product designed for helping one hang picture frames, has taught him a valuable lesson about the business of patenting.

“The thing I learned is it didn't look like a picture hanging hook. Everyone walked past it in the hardware store, and no one knew what the heck it was. I realised how much money it costs to market something.

“Retail is very, very expensive when it comes to buying space on a shelf. As soon as that product is not moving, you need to remove it.”

Fast forward to the Increda-peg, and it was the same scenario. They had a product, but the Increda-peg didn't look anything like a clothes peg.

“We had a bit of luck with lockdown. A nurse used an Increda-peg to hold her surgical mask behind her head rather than around her ears. With that we were able to get a licence to be able to distribute as a medical supplier, and we began to donate a lot of pegs to hospitals for the nurses who were working.

“It allowed us to continue to manufacture and distribute during lockdown.”

From their factory in Silvertondale in Pretoria, the company now pumps out thousands of pegs a day.

Their largest market is their online sales with most sales making their way to Cape Town.

They say on average, they are recycling one tonne of plastic every month, with 20 tonnes already turned into pegs since the business started.

– Business Insider SA

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