South Africa’s Waste Reclaimers Are Building a Zero Waste Future – and Reclaiming their Lives

A movement of self-organized recyclers is keeping tonnes of waste out of landfills, and connecting Gauteng, South Africa to the Global Climate Action Agenda through RegionsAdapt, a regional government network and partner in the Race to Resilience.

For nine years, Luyanda Hlatshwayo's workday began at 3 a.m. Racing to beat the municipal garbage trucks, he pulled plastic, cardboard and metal from bins in Johannesburg before they disappeared into landfills. After 18 hours in the scorching summer heat or winter rain, he would finish with a single bag of recyclables worth 70 rand ($4.24).

“Ten years back, everyone saw us as a nuisance,” Hlatshwayo said. "They saw us as scavengers."

He rejects that description. “We call ourselves reclaimers, not waste pickers,” he explains. “We don't collect waste – we collect recyclable materials that are valued.”

Today Hlatshwayo is the business development manager for the African Reclaimers Organization (ARO), which he helped found after Johannesburg sought to privatise waste collection – a move reclaimers feared would push informal workers out of livelihoods they had built themselves. Rather than abandon the work, they organized.

A zero waste system built by informal workers

In many respects, informal waste reclaimers like Hlatshwayo built the foundations of South Africa’s recycling system, but what’s changed is their place in the chain.

Before ARO existed, reclaimers like Hlatshwayo worked alone, on foot, hauling one bag at a time. Once they organized and built their own infrastructure – a fleet of trucks, training, safe places to work – the daily haul climbed to five bags, then as many as ten per person.

Research shows the country’s informal sector recovers up to 80 percent of post-consumer packaging – the everyday plastic and paper that ends up in landfills. ARO estimates that its reclaimers collect at least 20 tonnes of materials a day, enough to fill two soccer fields.

In South Africa the work saves municipalities 750 million Rand ($45.5 million USD) per year in operational waste management costs. That kind of diversion – keeping resources in use instead of piling them up in landfills – is exactly what the “zero waste” movement, now being championed through the Global Climate Action Agenda, is trying to scale.

How Gauteng's recycling system works, from bin to buy-back centre

In the Gauteng province, separation at source is not yet at full scale, said Palesa Mathibeli, the pollution and waste management director at Gauteng's local government. Only about 25% of households in Gauteng's urban areas currently separate their recyclables at home. Where there is no separation at source, recyclables are collected by reclaimers, pushing trolleys on collection day.

Recyclables are then transported – both by trucks run by organizations, as well as individuals with trolleys – to 300 buy-back centres across the province where they sell their collected materials. Centres compress and transport materials to processing facilities where they are turned into plastic pellets, textile fibres or building bricks, which are sold back to local businesses.

In Johannesburg, which is Gauteng’s largest city, waste reclaimers' recycling and composting work avoids roughly 251,000 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions each year by keeping metal, plastic, and organic waste out of landfills. Studies suggest that diverting even more of the city's waste from landfill, which still releases over 430,000 tonnes of CO₂e as it decomposes, would turn the system into a net climate benefit.

Gauteng is focusing on scaling existing operators, including a targeted program for Black-owned businesses, to secure their long-term viability. Public-private facilities are appearing too, Mathibeli says, like the Tonkmeter Resource Facility that processes up to 600 tonnes of recyclables a month across industrial, commercial and informal streams while creating income opportunities for reclaimers.

Policy is also aligning behind South Africa’s zero waste movement. Rules requiring producers to take responsibility for the waste they create have driven the rise of Producer Responsibility Organizations, which help fund recycling infrastructure. Meanwhile, brands such as Coca-Cola and Unilever pay annual subscription fees that help support reclaimers' livelihoods.

The challenges facing Gauteng's path to zero waste

Even so, challenges persist.

Municipal budgets are under pressure, Mathibeli said. Waste services compete with water, electricity, housing and roads for funding. Gauteng's waste tariffs are roughly one-third of those charged in Cape Town or Durban, leaving much of the system dependent on subsidies.

Meanwhile, space for landfills in Gauteng is quickly running out. Currently 80 percent of Gauteng’s waste still goes to landfill, and while the province is making progress on its 2030 target to divert 40 percent to recycling centres, it sits at 11 percent today, according to Mathibeli. As landfill sites close and transport distances increase, illegal dumping has spread, sometimes leading to violent confrontations during cleanup efforts.

Even as the province expands its recycling system, reclaimers remain only loosely integrated into it, Mathibeli said.

Hlatshwayo adds that formal recognition for the value that workers provide is crucial. “Waste pickers don't want to beg,” he said.

Changing perceptions of waste reclaimers in South Africa

Yet, after 15 years in the sector, Hlatshwayo feels that his work finally provides stability and purpose. ARO recently transitioned from a not-for-profit to include a business arm and secure fairer pricing for materials. Hlatshwayo is also hopeful about an upcoming partnership agreement with Johannesburg for ARO’s waste management services.

The stigma around waste picking is changing, too, he says. “Some of my family members were ashamed of me when I was doing the work. In an African context, a person that goes around picking waste is considered a crazy person. Now they see me driving a car, see me on TV and on YouTube,” he said.

The ARO model is helping change those perceptions and giving workers rights and dignity. Benefits such as childcare, proper hydration facilities and medical support have made the work safer and more efficient. The organization also recognizes workers as stakeholders and helps transition them into higher-skilled roles.

Like a number of his fellow reclaimers, Hlatshwayo has worked his way into a management role, earning R3,400 ($205.85 USD) per month – enough to cover rent, school fees and groceries, rather than just food for the day. It is a far cry from the 70 rand ($4.24) he earned when he started as an informal worker.

At one ARO facility in Johannesburg, all except four of the 70 employees – the accountant and a few professionals – are former reclaimers. The head of fleet logistics used to pull a trolley. The protective-gear sewing program is run by a 70-year old woman who has retired from the trade. And the receptionist, who once gathered recyclables to feed her family, now keeps the books and runs the front office.

“It’s not just solving the problem of waste, but about solving the problems of the reclaimers collecting waste – looking at them as mothers, fathers, caregivers.” Hlatshwayo said. “How we look at them is the most important thing. Our organization slogan is ‘reclaiming our lives.’”