This project, funded by the Government of Japan and implemented through the United National Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO),  was undertaken through a partnership between the CSIR and the University of the Witwatersrand to support South Africa’s transition from conventional plastics to more environmentally sustainable alternatives.

The objectives of the project were to develop an evidence-based Action Plan for South Africa’s transition and to provide support for increased collection of recyclable plastics by strengthening the capacity for waste picker integration. Other important issues considered include identifying products suitable for replacement, assessing the environmental sustainability of materials, end-of-life treatment requirements for alternative materials, and the potential for local production and conversion of biobased material alternatives to support local economic growth.

• Action plan 

The main output of the project was an evidence-based Action Plan [PDF] for supporting South Africa’s transition from conventional plastics to more sustainable alternative materials.

• Building capacity for waste picker integration

This project component centred around mapping the status of waste picker integration, identifying capacity building and training needs and developing training material. The outputs included four animated videos, training materials for a series of workshops for municipal officials and reclaimers on understanding and implementing waste picker integration, videos portraying a Day in the Life of Landfill and street reclaimer, and videos of three case studies on integration. These materials are available at https://wastepickerintegration.org/.

• Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of material alternatives for food take-out containers and cups

The team conducted a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) of polystyrene takeaway packaging (clamshells and cups) and similar packaging made from alternative materials to assess and compare them from an overall sustainability perspective.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an approach to assessing the environmental impacts across the full life cycle of a product, typically from “cradle-to-grave”. The application of environmental LCA is guided by ISO standards 14040 and 14044 of 2006.

In addition to environmental indicators, the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) also attempts to incorporate social and economic indicators into the assessment.

In this study, in addition to the 18 standard environmental indicators within the ReCiPe (2016) Life Cycle Impact Assessment method, the analysis was extended to include an assessment of Persistence and Material Pollution (to account for the impacts of plastic pollution) as well as socio-economic indicators such as costs and employment.