BiobiN™ Impacts

In response to the growing industry need to divert food and organic waste from landfill, BiobiN South Africa has just launched its new mini BiobiN – a 1m3 mobile unit that can process up to 800 kilograms of organic waste. The new 1m3 mini mobile BiobiN has been designed to cater for the smaller commercial organic waste generators, and for businesses that are limited with space. The unit can be wheeled around making it an extremely versatile option. So all the client needs to do , is wheel it into place and plug it in.

While many of us start to put of daily stresses aside, the waste management sector experiences a significant increase in food and organic waste during the festive season. This places an increase amount of pressure on the waste sector, including the waste collection services, landfill sites and the natural environment. According to waste statistics, South Africa produces 25% more food and organic waste during the festive season, compared to other months.

Community gardens are fast becoming the preferred land-use for many public open spaces. South Africa has seen a significant increase in the number of community food gardens in many major metros as well as rural townships, and schools. While this sustainable land use model brings many benefits to the surrounding communities and environment, organisations that manage these public community gardens are often faced with the challenge of resource shortages, especially a reliable and cost-effective supply of compost.

At the beginning of May, the Western Cape Veterinary Services announced the detection of Avian influenza at two commercial farms within the Western Cape. Since the announcement, approximately 550 000 chickens have been culled and many more eggs destroyed to prevent the further spread of the virus. This leaves the poultry sector with thousands of kilograms of high-risk – hazardous organic waste that needs to be carefully disposed of and treated. BiobiN South Africa discusses the importance of bio-secure waste management within the poultry sector to safeguard livestock, food production and to prevent further contamination.

With ambitious organic waste diversion goals, the City of Cape Town has implemented various regulatory strategies to encourage businesses and residents to minimise and divert more waste. One of these strategies is Waste Minimisation Clubs (WMC). This is a collective of people within a residential or business cluster that take ownership of the area’s waste minimisation and diversion initiatives. BiobiN South Africa looks at how composting units are a key component to make a WMC viable.

Saturday, 22 April 2023 is celebration as Global Earth Day to recognise the importance of our ecosystems, biodiversity, conservation and sustainability as a whole. The theme for Earth Day 2023 is ‘Investing in our Planet’.

When we start to look at the food and organic waste stream as a secondary resource that has economic value, we change our perception of this waste type as something burdensome that will be expensive to landfill. When we start to consider that food and organic waste is actually recyclable, we can see that there is an entire economic value chain for this waste stream. The impeding organic waste landfill ban in the Western Cape in 2027 is also accelerating the development of the organic waste secondary market and with this development, more business are implementing ways to extract value from their organic waste stream.

To be able to report on your waste management performance, the first step is to draft and implement a waste management strategy with waste reduction and diversion targets. There is no one-size fits all waste management strategy; establishing targets is dependent on the nature of waste streams, volumes, recycling and disposal infrastructure.

Last year the organic waste management sector saw a significant amount of development in alternative waste treatment (AWT) methods and technology that was responsible for diverting more of this waste stream from landfill. This created a more secondary resource supply and a stronger secondary resource economy. We saw this with the compost and biogas markets. In 2023 we will see a continuation of the growth of the secondary resource market for organic waste.

Environmental management has become a crucial part of operating a business, and an integral component under this umbrella is waste management. No longer can a business discard all their waste into a ‘general waste’ bin, you need to have a plan for all waste streams, from solid waste recyclables to food and organic waste. Waste management for every business will look different, there is no one size fits all waste management strategy.