Braving the cold weather on a Saturday in April, Petco's stakeholder engagement officer, Junaid Francis, and communications officer, Naledi Yona, joined non-profit organisations Clean C, Save a Fishie NPC and Petco member PepsiCo, to clean up Cape Town’s Woodbridge Island beach.

The clean-up, which saw 50 PepsiCo employees participating, also presented an opportunity for team members to share some valuable insights on the litter items collected – especially how to address the prevalence of plastic bottle caps and closures in the environment.

Considering the huge amount of bottle caps collected on the day, PepsiCo’s Nicolette Beffels emphasised that plastic caps should be reattached to bottles before being discarded, thereby reducing their potential for being littered separately.

Save a Fishie founder Zoë Prinsloo and Petco’s Junaid Francis further underscored the critical need to create sustained awareness among consumers to inspire them to change their behaviour.

“It’s only through a deeper understanding of how using and throwing away plastic can cause harm to the environment that we can drive collective action. We also need to encourage greater public involvement in beach cleanups and similar initiatives,” said Prinsloo.

Addressing the lack of appropriate infrastructure to combat litter on beaches was highlighted as another priority by Francis.

“Consumers should have no excuse to litter, and it’s high time that all popular SA beaches have waste separation bins. Their mere presence will serve as a reminder that each and every litter item holds value and has its own place,” said Francis.

In many other countries, public demand for action on plastic waste has escalated significantly over the past few years, while in SA such a level of concern is still lacking.

It’s Petco’s hope that something as seemingly insignificant as reattaching bottle closures before disposal will become a consumer habit in SA. Such a small lifestyle change takes no effort and can trigger other important consumer waste sorting and disposal practices.

From a design for recycling perspective, Petco advocates for the use of tethered caps on PET plastic bottles and cartons, which remain attached before disposal into the recycling bin. This effective packaging design change increases the amount of packaging that is recycled and kept out of the environment, where it does not belong.