The work of building a circular economy doesn't start at the recycling plant. It starts with the people who recover materials every day.

In KwaZulu-Natal, the Petco team has begun engaging across Glencoe, Dundee and the wider Endumeni Local Municipality to build practical capacity and strengthen local collection networks.

In Glencoe, the team hosted a training session for employees and waste pickers at a local recycling buy-back centre to improve the practical identification and sorting of PET and liquid board packaging (LBP).

While these may seem simple skills, they have a direct impact on the recycling value chain. Better identification and separation can reduce contamination of recycling streams, improve the quality and value of recovered materials, and increase the potential for those materials to re-enter manufacturing processes.

The team also stressed the importance of safer working practices, and handed out reflective safety vests and gloves to assist with this.

For Petco, this type of engagement is about more than a once-off training session. It is about understanding the realities at grassroots level and strengthening the connections between waste pickers, collectors, buy-back centres and the broader recycling industry – because a circular economy can only function when every part of the value chain is connected.