Petco Shows Strong Annual Growth in Package Recycling

Petco, South Africa’s leading producer responsibility organisation, has delivered robust annual results for the collection and recycling of post-consumer packaging, meeting the legislated targets for 99% of the tonnage of identified products placed on the market by its members in 2024.

The organisation’s 29 members, which include major brands such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Tetra Pak, and Tiger Brands, represent most of the PET plastic beverage bottles and liquid board packaging (LBP) placed onto the South African market.

According to the newly released audited data, Petco’s efforts saved 76,000 cubic metres of South Africa’s scarce landfill space – the recyclable packaging thus diverted would fill 2,324 standard, six-metre shipping containers.

According to Petco CEO Telly Chauke, the organisation was pleased to have met the targets set by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) for the identified products registered with the organisation.

“We’re particularly delighted with the success of our new EPR scheme for liquid board packaging, which saw us achieve a more than 200% increase in its collection and recycling rate last year.

“In only our second year of administering a scheme for these cartons, we’ve collected and recycled three times the volume compared to 2023.”

The significant leap in LBP collection and recycling rates is a validation of Petco’s operating model, which is based on building sustainable value chains for the post-consumer packaging for which the organisation administers schemes.

Following the implementation of mandatory extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation three years ago, Petco had also met the annual collection targets for PET bottles and jars, and their associated closures and labels, and increased these rates year on year.

“Our model, which is informed by 20 years’ experience as an industry body, has seen us grow the collection for recycling of post-consumer PET bottles and jars from 16% of those placed on market in 2005 to nearly 76% of what our members place on the market today.

“With over 70% of our members’ PET bottles and jars now successfully recycled, our goal is to achieve similar results for LBP in the long-term.”

Since 2023, when Petco introduced an EPR scheme for LBP, strategic industry-driven infrastructure investments have seen LBP collection and recycling rates triple from 8% each to 24% and 26% respectively.

A key focus for 2024 was partnering with member Tetra Pak in the deployment of a team of buy-back centre liaison officers and regional recycling officers to enhance the collection and recycling of LBP nationwide. Serving as contact points to strengthen linkages between buy-back centres, waste pickers, municipal authorities, and industry stakeholders, the team’s role is to address regional collection challenges and foster local solutions.

“Petco’s distinct value offering to members is having a team on the ground dedicated to ensuring the flow of materials to our recyclers,” says Chauke.

Aside from their daily operations, Petco’s team conducted over 200 on-site activations last year at buy-back centres in all provinces, where they met with waste pickers and business owners to demonstrate the value of collecting LBP.

As a composite material, LBP’s recycled material output comprises 75% paperboard, and 25% poly-aluminium, the latter of which can be turned into innovative end-uses such as school desks, and low-cost building materials.

Petco’s partnership-based approach involves a delicate balance of working to unlock the feedstock for these recyclers by providing support for collection on the ground, growing end-use demand for the recycled materials, and encouraging the development of recycling capacity.

In 2024, Petco spent R70 million on financial support for the value chain, which enabled its contracted recycling partners to purchase approximately R470 million in post-consumer packaging materials from small businesses. This creates monetary value in collecting materials, enabling the money to flow down the value chain to waste pickers.

“Ultimately, growth is Petco’s driving force – growing our footprint, our technical abilities and capacity to grow South Africa’s circular economy, while keeping valuable recyclable packaging out of the environment and landfills. We aim to be ambitious not only in executing our existing mandate but in growing that mandate to add more value to our members,” adds Chauke.