In honour of Global Recycling Day, the South African Breweries (SAB) and Corona have launched a new plastic recycling partnership with Ramtsilo to strengthen the local plastic recycling chain and assure a Net Zero Plastic Footprint in South Africa.
The partnership will see Corona collect and recycle hard-to-recycle plastics in Gauteng and the Free State.
Ramtsilo, a 100% black female-owned company, will not only facilitate the plastic collection programme, provide specialised sensitisation and training among waste pickers, but will also repurpose these plastics into environmentally-friendly, fire-tested bricks that can be used in households, buildings and roads.
Corona’s aims to be a “sustainability leader in consumer-packaged goods, taking significant steps to help protect the world’s oceans and beaches from marine plastic pollution”. The achievement of a Net Zero Plastic Footprint means that Corona recovers more plastic from the environment than it releases into the world and it focuses on redesign efforts to progressively eliminate plastic.
According to the SAB, this initiative falls in line with its sustainability goal which is to have 100% of its products to be in primary packaging that is returnable or made from majority recycled content by 2025.
South African Corona marketing manager Thomas Lawrence said that “supporting a business in the recycling value chain is exactly how SAB and Corona are contributing to creating a circular economy and taking action to keep plastic out of our communities and environment”.