Speaker 1: All right. The learners from three schools in the Athlone
Speaker 1: area have this year become recycling champions and eco ambassadors
Speaker 1: as part of a project, a pilot project to ensure
Speaker 1: that recyclable items are diverted from landfills. The project, involving
Speaker 1: Normal Road, q Town and Alistair Primary schools, was run
Speaker 1: by Zero Waste Solution Company which Regionize and in partnership
Speaker 1: with the Producer Responsibility Organization PETCO and from their marketing manager,
Speaker 1: Kay Levy joins us. Oh sorry, Carra, Kara. Kara Levy
Speaker 1: joins us this afternoon, Kara, good to have you with us.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. How did this.
Speaker 1: Project get started, Kara? And why the decision particularly for
Speaker 1: these to target these three schools.
Speaker 2: So we have been a longtime partner with REGIONIS as PITTCO.
Speaker 2: It's our responsibility to look after and make sure that
Speaker 2: the packaging that our members place on the market is
Speaker 2: collected and recycled. So we have for a long time
Speaker 2: had their partnership with Regionized and we were talking and
Speaker 2: they have a large interest from many of the schools
Speaker 2: that they are collecting from and they approached us and
Speaker 2: asked us if we could or would be willing to
Speaker 2: support the project, and we said absolutely. When you know
Speaker 2: there is interest from a school, or particularly from teachers
Speaker 2: or principal at a school, we like to jump on
Speaker 2: board because that means that there's somebody that will be
Speaker 2: holding the project accountable and running with it. And so
Speaker 2: we jumped right in and with our third partner, which
Speaker 2: is green Pop, we worked out a whole little mechanism
Speaker 2: and ecosystem for the.
Speaker 1: Competition and it was right as you say, run as
Speaker 1: a competition. Tell us how the learners did in terms
Speaker 1: of weight, So they.
Speaker 2: Did really well. It was kind of split into two parts.
Speaker 2: First part was well it was Grade R to Grade
Speaker 2: three and then it was Grade four to Grade seven
Speaker 2: and over all they collected just under seven hundred kilograms
Speaker 2: of recyclable packaging, so that means that all of that
Speaker 2: packaging was diverted from landfall. We've got a big landfall
Speaker 2: crisis in South Africa where a lot of our landfalls
Speaker 2: are filling up really quickly. A lot of them are
Speaker 2: so for that they have already actually closed down. So
Speaker 2: that is one of the main aims of the work
Speaker 2: that we do, making sure that that valuable packaging states
Speaker 2: out of landfall, out of the environment and gets made
Speaker 2: into new useful products.
Speaker 1: So maybe you can talk a little bit to that
Speaker 1: the message of sustainability. What how, how have you sort
Speaker 1: of passed that message on to the learners and how
Speaker 1: are they then passing it on to their communities.
Speaker 2: So we've got various initiatives in place. We've got a
Speaker 2: partnership with clipig and Pace School's Club where we've created
Speaker 2: capsuligned content in the form of workbooks and posters, where
Speaker 2: parents and teachers are able to actually go to our
Speaker 2: website orto that we can pay School's Club website and
Speaker 2: download content. But specifically for this competition, we had people
Speaker 2: who work with Regionized go to the school and actually
Speaker 2: introduce the competition and give that information to the kids.
Speaker 2: And what the kids needed to then do is to
Speaker 2: actually go home and make sure that they were separating
Speaker 2: their packaging from organic waste or waste that would go
Speaker 2: to landfall, and then they needed to bring that to
Speaker 2: school and from their Regionized would collect it. So it
Speaker 2: creates a whole nice ecosystem because there's the buzz that's
Speaker 2: created at school, then that message goes home to the parents.
Speaker 2: The kids are energized and excited about winning the competition.
Speaker 2: That's school and the parents then have to listen to
Speaker 2: their kids to make their kids happy, I guess, and
Speaker 2: to start separating at home. So we hope that this
Speaker 2: will have a longer term impact once the parents and
Speaker 2: the kids now have kind of brought into why it
Speaker 2: is so important to actually separate your refactable packaging from ways.
Speaker 1: Why do you see the project or the venture going
Speaker 1: in the future. Are their plans to expand it to.
Speaker 2: Tom Absolutely so. We are currently still in talks with
Speaker 2: where the project will go. We are hoping to expand
Speaker 2: it further. We've got lots of learnings from this from
Speaker 2: these three pilot schools. Unfortunately, some people in the area,
Speaker 2: you know, because this packaging is worth something. If a
Speaker 2: wastepicker is able to get this sort of packaging, they
Speaker 2: can sell it at a buyback center for money. So
Speaker 2: they actually founded some of the materials were stolen from
Speaker 2: the school, and so that was a good learning for
Speaker 2: us that we need to make sure that the packaging
Speaker 2: is kept in a more secure location. But I mean,
Speaker 2: over all, the kids were so excited and a lot
Speaker 2: of the people who actually ran the project, some of
Speaker 2: the people that were working for Rege ANDIZM who conducted
Speaker 2: the project, was so inspired by how excited the kids
Speaker 2: were and the results that they are really excited to
Speaker 2: hopefully roll out more of these or roll up the
Speaker 2: initiative to more schools. So yeah, we're in box, is
Speaker 2: the main answer for you there. Yes, we are definitely
Speaker 2: going to be doing more on the ground. Well.
Speaker 1: In enormous congratulations to the learners that those schools, Normal Road,
Speaker 1: qu Town and Alistair Primary in Athlone for their efforts
Speaker 1: and certainly recycling champions, and also delighted to have you
Speaker 1: Kara with us this afternoon talking to us about the
Speaker 1: role of PETCO in this Lara sorry cart Levy is
Speaker 1: from PETCO, which is South Africa's longest standing producer responsibility organization.