Petco is championing sustainability in South Africa by recovering recyclable materials and ensuring a steady flow through a challenging value chain.
Across South Africa, Petco continues to collaborate with partners to recover packaging materials placed on the market by its members. By maintaining this focus, Petco ensures that valuable recyclables are kept in circulation despite the challenges within the industry.
At the core of our model is a strong focus on empowering communities and developing sustainable solutions. From public education on recycling benefits to assisting small collection businesses, we aim to create a more circular packaging approach and positively impact South Africa’s economic and environmental landscapes.
Stronger communities, smarter recycling
Petco’s initiatives make recycling accessible and sustainable by:
- Educating the public about responsible packaging disposal.
- Empowering smaller collection businesses with tools and knowledge for efficient operations.
- Supporting members in designing eco-friendly, circular packaging that promotes sustainability.
Together, these efforts focus on building a more resilient and sustainable recycling model that benefits businesses and communities alike.
Collection support: Supporting collectors remained central to our work. We uplifted collections by providing training, equipment, improved safety practices and formal connections to structured value chains.
Systems and reporting: We enhanced Petco’s data management, reporting and traceability systems to deliver real-time, high-quality information for producer reporting, regulatory submissions and operational decisions. Upgrades to our digital platforms made data uploads simpler, more accurate and more transparent. We also continued fiscal support to recycling partners who play a critical role in the value chain. We improved operational efficiency by streamlining internal workflows, strengthening oversight frameworks for funded projects, and reinforcing governance to ensure alignment with EPR regulations and Petco’s strategic objectives.
Infrastructure roll-out: One of our most significant achievements was the large-scale rollout of new collection and recycling infrastructure across multiple provinces. Investments in district-level pilots and waste-picker integration directly contributed to increased recovery of Petco-identified products, in some cases exceeding legislated targets.
Research insights: Another highlight was commissioning research with trusted institutions to support value-chain coordination, stronger data integration and inclusive stakeholder engagement. These insights will help identify bottlenecks, map material flows and design practical, community-level interventions that support ongoing target achievement.
EPR compliance: We ensured that members’ EPR commitments translated into both compliance and measurable impact. By investing in community-based infrastructure, including balers, scales, cages and trolleys, we enabled waste pickers, cooperatives and buy-back centres to collect and sort packaging more efficiently and safely, unlocking higher recovery volumes in priority districts. On the recycling side, deeper partnerships, improved traceability and support for end-market development strengthened alignment between what is collected and what can be processed and returned to the circular economy. Enhanced data systems and real-time reporting ensured verified recovery outcomes and full regulatory compliance.
