Tag: Circular Economy

Recycling has become a part of our day-to-day lives. Whether it’s the ritual of sorting our household waste or making the switch to reusable products, taking proactive steps towards sustainability goals by managing waste is already ingrained in our behaviour. This behaviour is supporting a widespread shift toward a circular economy.

Kate Stubbs | Marketing Director | Interwaste | mail me | Our resilience and adaptability have been put to the test more than ever over the last 18...

The idea that every morning office workers wake early, jump into polluting cars and overcrowded trains, and travel many miles to their place of work will soon seem inconceivable. The pandemic has highlighted the fact, that it as a model that’s already had its day.

Life on earth is symbiotic, each component within the ecosystem plays a significant role – you only have to examine how the loss of the bee population today is affecting food systems – to be reminded of just how interconnected everything really is.

As the global population continues to increase, waste generation is threatening biodiversity and the planet as a whole. With the global population expected to significantly exceed nine billion people by 2050, of which some 2.5 billion will be living on the African continent, biodiversity is shrinking, even as the waste generated by billions of people grows exponentially.

For the past 50 years, human activities have dramatically reduced biodiversity across the globe. We have, through our actions, extinguished our habitats and reduced populations of plants and wild animals by up to 60% so that today, our natural resources and the species on our planet are under threat – from us.

If we really want to encourage the ‘nothing wasted’ mindset, investing in a circular economy model must be taken seriously. Whilst still a relatively new concept, in Africa, this model offers significant opportunities to truly deliver far more inclusive growth for the economy and includes an increase in job opportunities as well as positive environmental practices - all of which is needed for sustainable growth - a dire need for South Africa.

Although the rise of COVID-19 presented many challenges to our country in the year 2020, it stimulated the growth of technological innovations that we can build on to the effects on how we do business, how we trade, how we work, how we produce goods, how we learn, how we seek medical services and how we entertain ourselves in 2021.

A Green Economy can be defined as a system of economic activities related to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that result in improved human well-being over the long term, while not exposing future generations to significant environmental risks or ecological scarcities.

The UN has estimated that the global population will near 11.3 billion by 2060, with Africa expected to experience just as much exponential growth (2.5 billion by 2050), which will represent about 26% of the world's total population.