What is the business and how was it started?
Consol Glass ran a radio advert stating that the company wanted to increase its recycling volumes. Karl and I grew up in Elsies River, in Cape Town, where alcoholism and unemployment are rife. We decided to put the same beer and wine bottles that cause so much heartache to a good cause.
I approached our old school, Range High School, witha recycling proposal: each child brings a glass bottle or container to the school for collection; we supply a container at no cost; once the container is full, we collect it from the school’s premises and take it to Consol Glasswhere it is weighed; Consol pays us for the glass and we in turn give the school a cash incentive. Both the school principal and Consol Glass liked the idea. The project was launched, and by the end of the year we had 12 schools involved. We also held a competition and Range High School,which collected the most glass (13 915,79kg), was awarded 10 desktop computers. A total of 28 659kg was collected from the 12 schools.
How do you make money from the business?
We have 41 agents working for us and we are busy establishing six buy-back centres in the Western Cape. We have recycled 2,4 million kilograms of glass over the past two-and-a-half years, indirectly creating 140 jobs. We have four permanent staff members and one casual employee. We sell bottles to several bottling companies, including Distillers and SA Breweries, and Consol Glass buys broken glass from us. We also receive waste glass from Marion Island every three months, via the Department of Environmental Affairs.
What has been your greatest challenge to date?
Convincing financial institutions to give us funding, changing attitudes to glass recycling and getting to grips with the tender process. Lack of funding prohibits further expansion.