Approximately 54 million tonnes of waste is produced on a yearly basis in South Africa. This is enough to cover an entire soccer field 10 metres deep every day. The amount of waste we generate puts our landfill sites under extreme pressure, which is already an unsustainable waste disposal solution.
Considering that 90% of our waste still goes to landfill, and most municipalities have not commissioned or licensed a new landfill site in more than 20 years, we need to increase the use of alternative waste treatment (AWT) methods, like commercial composting. Many sectors, like retail, hospitality, and agricultural, use composting units like BiobiN to manage their organic waste streams.
With stringent environmental impact assessment regulations and waste licensing, it can take up to 5 years to approve a new landfill site. It takes, on average another year to construct it. As it stands, many landfill sites in South Africa do not have that much time before they reach capacity.
Why diverting waste is so important
Our waste sector needs to divert waste from landfill, not only due to the limited landfill capacity the remains but also to avoid the environmental impacts at landfill sites.
BiobiN’s primary mission is to divert organic waste from landfill, to circulate it as a resource, as compost. Given government response to the landfill situation, it is now illegal to take any organic waste and food waste with more than a 40% moisture content to landfill, because of this regulation, more businesses are using on-site composting units to comply.
Keep up with the conversation at www.biobin.co.za or on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/BiobiNSouthAfrica