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Turning waste into wealth
Business Brief
|BusinessBrief October/November 2025
It is staggering to note that South Africa generates around 125,000 million tonnes of solid waste per annum.
Of this, approximately 52% is regarded as hazardous waste and 48% is classified as general waste. An estimated 48% consists of ash waste generated from coal power stations, and the remaining 52%, is non-ash waste. The input recycling rate is approximately 19% and if ash material is excluded, South Africa recovers close to 34% of non-ash waste for recycling.
Against this backdrop, the South African government has set ambitious targets to reduce the quantity of waste that is disposed of landfill by 40% within five years (2025), 55% within ten years (2030) and at least 70% within fifteen years.
Although there has been an increase of diversion of waste to landfill over the last decade due to the increase in reuse, recycling, and recovery of waste, we still need to significantly increase the rate of diversion to reach zero waste to landfill.
Identifying potential growth areas
The Waste Research and Innovation Roadmap for SA (2021) suggests that the financial advantages related to the diversion of waste from landfill are indirect or long-term, largely due to the challenges faced.[2] These include low market prices, and the fluctuation of international commodity prices, thus there is not a guaranteed market for recyclables.
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