A national drive to improve the recovery of liquid board packaging (LBP) has seen Petco hosting a series of activations on landfill sites from the Western Cape to Mpumalanga. It was a chance to meet and support the dedicated waste pickers who work these sites daily.

The Western Cape team kicked off their first official landfill activation at the Stellenbosch Landfill Site. Here we brought together dedicated on-site reclaimers, industry partners and municipal stakeholders to help divert valuable recyclable materials from landfill.

The activation formed part of Petco’s annual LBP competition programme and delivered some encouraging results:

• 87kg of LBP harvested
• 7kg collected by the winning participant

Beyond the volumes collected, the activation highlighted the opportunity to create more consistent LBP recovery streams from landfill sites, unlocking additional material for recycling while supporting those working on the frontlines of resource recovery.

One stand-out insight shared by a participant was that hosting these activations more frequently would enable reclaimers to dedicate specific days to harvesting LBP, resulting in greater material recovery and potentially attracting more buyers to participate in the value chain.

In Mpumalanga, the Petco team rolled out a series of LBP recovery initiatives across the Standerton, Hazyview, Tekwane, and Carolina landfill sites.

The team showed the waste pickers how to identify and handle LBP, empowering and incentivising them to improve the collection, sorting, and recovery of this material, and

Unlock more income-generating opportunities for themselves.