MOSSEL BAY NEWS - A Mossel Bay resident contacted the municipality to ask what happened to the various refuse bags - black, blue and green - after they were collected from his premises.
The municipality provided information as a reminder on the "three bag" system.
The black bags are for non-recyclable household waste and they go to a dump site at PetroSA.
The blue bags, which should be used for recyclable matter, are collected by the company, Interwaste.
The green bags are collected by a municipal service provider and they go to tips on Louis Fourie Road and Great Brak River. Green bags should be used for garden refuse.
The refuse bags are distributed every three months and each household receives 30 bags per distribution: 13 black, 13 blue and 13 green (if there is a garden).
The Mossel Bay Advertiser contacted rubbish recycling company, Interwaste, to find out what happens to people's blue bags, which contain recyclables.
Kate Stubbs, sales and marketing director at Interwaste, said: "To ensure the sorting process is as clean as possible, Interwaste is reliant on the communities that recycle such waste to ensure that they sort their waste effectively, separating recyclables, general waste and garden refuse.
"The residents in this area are well educated on recycling and are generally very good at sorting their waste, resulting in the waste management process [of the blue bags] being very clean."
High quality recyclables
Stubbs continued: "This results in high quality recyclables, almost all of which are sent to Cape Town to be recycled at various plants including the Gayatri Paper Mill, Neopack and Consol Glass, for example.
"Also, some of the collected waste items - such as aluminium cans - are sold to industry, to be used in their manufacturing process.
"This type of on-selling of waste is critical in the country's drive towards creating what we call a circular economy, where the aim is to reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill and ensure that each bit of waste produced can be reused, repurposed or recycled."
The resident who asked about the different coloured bags, was keen to find out why the Interwaste recycling depot in Voorbaai in Mossel Bay was closed down. Previously the blue bags went to the depot in Voorbaai, where they were sorted.
Mossdustria
Now they go to a premises at Mossdustria.
Stubbs answered, saying: "The recycling industry is under pressure as there are more recyclable materials than what can be processed and so it is important that – as a business – we find the most cost-effective ways to both transport and manage such recyclables, to broaden the capability.
"As a result, we moved our depot to Mossdustria, which is more central to our larger logistics requirements across this region. Therefore, some of the blue bags – predominantly waste collected from central Mossel Bay - are transported there to ensure they can be bulked up with other similar waste collected and consequently transported to George where they can be further sorted.
"We have a responsibility to the municipality, our clients and the business to ensure that our logistics process is based on the most efficient, cost effective method and that it makes sense from a resourcing perspective and we believe that the Mossdustria depot facilitates this commitment."
Regarding black bags, the resident asked what happened to them when they arrived at the tip at PetroSA. "Are they opened and the biodegradeable waste and recyclable items removed?"
Black bags
Nickey le Roux, responsible for marketing and communications at the Mossel Bay Municipality, confirmed: "The black bags are disposed directly at PetroSA and there is no recycling or waste reclamation taking place on site. All black bags go into the landfill."
She said: "The municipality introduced the three bag system to promote the separation and sorting of waste in households and it also promotes home composting."
As a reminder:
The black bags should contain only domestic waste that is not recyclable.
Blue bags should contain clean cardboard, glass, paper, tins and metal, plastic and rinsed out, clean paper packaging that contained liquid, such as milk cartons.
The green bags should contain grass, leaves and branches broken into smaller pieces.
Mossel Bay residents who have space in their gardens are encouraged to have compost heaps where they can dispose of hair and fur, shredded paper, straw and hay, animal bedding and sawdust, crushed egg shells, grass and plant cuttings, raw fruit and vegetable peelings, tea bags and coffee granules and horse manure. If space is limited some of these items can be composted in a plastic composting bin for a worm farm which can be housed in a rectangle plastic box with a tap so that the "worm tea" may be decanted.
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