Trigger to recycling in a developing country: in the absence of command-and-control instruments

Abstract

Waste recycling in South Africa is largely industry driven with the focus to date having been on pre-consumer recovery and recycling from business and industry. With a very young pro-environmental consciousness in South Africa, limited post-consumer separation at source and recycling has occurred. Any post-consumer recovery which has taken place has largely been supported by a large informal recycling sector which is dependent upon the income stream associated with informal collection. Waste recycling statistics for South Africa suggests an average growth rate of 23.7% over the past few years in the percentage of recyclables recovered and reprocessed. However, this progress is not the direct result of implementing waste legislation, which prior to 2008 focused on the control of waste disposal at landfill and did not require waste separation at source or recycling. The waste management hierarchy was first introduced into South African environmental law in 1998 as the only means to achieve sustainable development (Matete and Trois, 2008). This paper reports on a preliminary assessment of the drivers of recycling in South Africa, looking at both ends of the spectrum, from post-consumer recycling (as generators of the ‘waste’) to the recycling industry (as the recipients of a ‘renewable resource’). The findings suggest that financial incentives are the main drivers for recycling from an industry point of view while environmental awareness supported by convenience are factors influencing post-consumer household recycling behaviour.