The Petco Empowerment Fund boosts South African recycling by supporting SMMEs like Why Waste, fostering growth, sustainability, and community impact.
An empowerment fund created by one of South Africa’s longest-standing producer responsibility organisations is starting to deliver on its mandate to bolster small to medium-sized businesses and move them up the collection and recycling value chain.
A fund for growth and inclusion
The Petco Empowerment Fund, which is funded by contributions from Petco’s producer members and other benefactors, provides accessible finance and support to B-BBEE Level 1 SMMEs to help them increase their operational capacity, thereby contributing to their increased ability to collect recyclable materials. Petco chief executive officer Telly Chauke said building a sustainable circular economy requires a vision that goes beyond capacitating players to remain where they are in the collection and recycling value chain and instead empowers them to grow in scale and impact.
“We should be creating a pipeline of growth by providing support at all levels – from waste picker projects right up to emerging industrialists – to assist them to participate meaningfully in the value chain, and ensure a stronger, more inclusive recycling landscape in South Africa,” said Chauke. “Our Petco Empowerment Fund is the result of streamlining and repositioning our development investment strategy to expand beyond our existing, day-to-day support for projects. It allows us to create upward mobility and scale up our developmental impact.”
Chauke said a number of pre-qualifying SMMEs had already undergone Petco’s rigorous application and selection process, demonstrating their improved capacity, skills and economic viability.
Spotlight on why waste: A success story
One of the first grant recipients, Why Waste in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, is already creating a positive economic ripple effect in the surrounding communities through the buying and selling of post-consumer recyclable packaging. The 100% black-owned business, which has been operating in the sector for almost 30 years, currently employs 59 community members and trades with a network of around 230 independent waste collectors, collecting over 6000 tonnes of recyclable materials annually.
Why Waste used the bulk of the R1.3 million grant funding to purchase capital equipment, recently taking delivery of a four-ton truck, double-axle trailer and mobile baling machine. Speaking at the handover ceremony, Why Waste’s head of finance and marketing, Razia Patel, described the grant and equipment as “transformational”. “Prior to this, our collections and baling processes were limited by logistics and manual handling constraints. With this new equipment, we are now able to process more recyclables, reduce transport costs, and improve turnaround times,” Patel said. She said the equipment had already enabled Why Waste to extend its reach into under-served areas and increase collection frequencies.
Expanding reach in underserved areas
“The mobile baler allows us to compact recyclables at source, reducing transportation bulk and enabling us to collect higher volumes more cost-effectively. With the additional truck and trailer, we have also been able to establish new collection routes, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas where packaging waste often goes uncollected. As a result, we’ve seen a significant increase in volumes collected.” More importantly, Patel said, the grant had already had a direct and positive effect on the communities they serve. “We’ve been able to onboard more local waste pickers by supplying them with bags and providing consistent buy-back support.
