eWASA News – 21 Jan 2022

We have received confirmation that DFFE has received our query about the finalisation of the EPR fee structure. They promised feedback early in 2022. We will keep you posted.

Membership Renewals

It’s time to start the process of annual membership renewals. Our admin team will contact you with a proforma invoice for the 1 March 2022 –  28 February 2023 membership fees. Should you wish to renew, please let us know so we can prepare a tax invoice and send you the updated membership certificate.

South Africa has a significant waste management problem. In 2019, the Association for Water and Rural Development, a nonprofit organisation specialising in addressing issues of sustainability, inequity and poverty, reported that South Africans generate more than 54 million tons of waste a year. Of this, a maximum of only 10% is recycled or recovered for other uses, while at least 90% is landfilled or dumped.

Informal waste pickers play a vital role in the recycling and management of waste. According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, informal waste pickers collect 80%-90% of all used packaging and paper that is recycled. Without them, South Africa’s recycling economy would not exist, and some of the landfills would have closed long ago.

It is estimated that more than 215,000 informal waste pickers are working at the heart of the nation’s recycling economy, recovering mostly paper and packaging waste from the service chain and introducing these secondary resources into the country’s value chain.

Read more on Daily Maverick.

OEMs are looking at redesigning products to ease repair and recycling.

Redesign for disassembly: Smart speaker brand Sonos announced several sustainability steps, including redesigning devices so they’re easier to repair, refurbish and recycle. During the 2021 fiscal year, the company said it began a new “design for disassembly” process, which builds in features, such as fasteners instead of adhesive, to make it easier to disassemble the products. According to the announcement, the features will be incorporated into all new speakers and components starting in the 2023 fiscal year.

Dell unveils “Concept Luna”: Along the same lines, Dell has developed a laptop that’s easier to repair and recycle. The computer company unveiled what it’s calling “Concept Luna,” a proof-of-concept laptop it developed with Intel. Dell reduced the number of screws needed to access internal components for repair or reuse from hundreds to just four, significantly cutting estimated repair times. It also includes a printed circuit board made of flax fibre instead of plastic laminates. The material can dissolve in water, allowing recycling companies to more easily separate metals and components from the board.

Read more on Resource Recycling.

Resource reported in November 2021: “In its efforts to pave the way towards a more sustainable city, the City of Cape Town has installed a floating solar photovoltaic (PV) system at the Kraaifontein Wastewater Treatment Works.

The City hopes the project will help to determine evaporation savings and energy generation performance of floating solar farms. With the project, the City aims to achieve a total renewable energy generation of 300 MW through both City-owned and private power generation.

The floating solar farm is part of a research study involving private company Floating Solar, the Water Research Commission and the University of Cape Town. Data will be collected from sensors over a 12-month period to potentially inform the design of larger utility-scale floating solar PV projects over the next few years through competitive bid processes.

The farm includes a floating solar panel array as well as a ground-mounted solar panel system to determine evaporation savings and relative energy generation performance of floating solar PV technology.” Read more here.