Nampak Rigid Plastics does double “green”

BRAND ACTIVITY

Nov 5th, 09:15

Recently two important “green” awards were made: the PETCO CSI Champion of the Year Award and the SAPRO Best Recycled Product of the Year Award. Both of these prestigious awards involved initiatives and products from Nampak Rigid Plastics.

At its August Annual General Meeting, The PET Recycling Company (PETCO) honored stakeholders and celebrated the achievements of individuals, companies and organisations within the PET industry that have made extraordinary contributions to the recycling of post-consumer PET in South Africa at their AGM.

The CSI Champion of the Year Award is awarded to a company that is actively and significantly contributing to making a difference in society through relevant upliftment interventions, specifically aimed at communities, job creation through recycling and poverty alleviation goals.

According to Lisa Parkes, Marketing Manager of PETCO, the award went to Nampak “for having succeeded in internalising EPR by extending CSI activities into recycling, education and awareness raising arenas”.

Nampak and its divisions have long been active in the CSI environmental arena with some of the notable projects being their partnership with Wessa Eco schools project- PENSchools; The Trekking for Trash program; The Orange River project; Community beach clean ups; the Two Oceans clean up; Chips to Chairs campaign and the Johannesburg zoo billboard campaign – all of which were considered by PETCO in making the award.

Nampak Rigid Plastics and Plastics|SA sponsor the Orange River project (the first ever attempt to riverboard South Africa’s longest river, the 2 300km Orange River) to raise awareness of water pollution and the need for proper disposal of litter. Schools along the way are encouraged to participate in river clean-ups and recycling, and learners and community leaders are shown how to monitor and test water quality on a regular basis. Their ability to do so enables the effective management of farming activities and public health issues, particularly along the riverbank.

The Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town was supplied with ml HDPE bottles by Nampak Liquid (a division of Nampak Rigid Plastics) and Plastics|SA, who employed 110 people to help clean up nearly 20 000kg of waste along the route, including the Chapman’s Peak leg, which is a marine conservation area.

In September, The South African Plastics Recyclers Organisation (SAPRO) presented a gold award and its trophy for the Best Recycled Product of 2013 to Unilever SA for its Sunlight Dishwash Bottle. Nampak Liquid (now incorporating Nampak Petpak) injection stretch blow mould these bottles from recycled material supplied by Extrupet.

The PET bottle composed of 50% rPET (recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate) has been developed in stages over the period of 18 months as part of an ongoing project to create a suitable market friendly bottle with a higher rPET content.

The SAPRO annual competition is hosted in collaboration with Plastics|SA and forms one of the highlights of the local plastic industry’s Clean Up South Africa Week (16-21 September 2013) – an initiative that encourages South Africans to clean-up and recycle where they work, live or play. Douglas Greig, Chairman of SAPRO explained that the completion, “known as the Oscars of the plastics industry, acknowledges recycled plastics products and encourages brand owners and industrial designers to consider recycled plastics as a material of choice”.
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