I have never been asked this question, but I think it could have been on the mind of those who didn’t ask it to me.
Yes, you are paying for waste management through your rates and taxes, but are you seeing the results which you wish? With only 59% of households receiving waste collection in South Africa, and 11% of the collected waste being recycled, doesn’t it seem like something more needs to be done? It is easy to see that it will take a long time to see results unless we do something different: we need to take our future into our own hands. We need to change the system and we need to see results urgently.
Here comes a small business which has a well-researched model of recycling - which has the potential to be the urgent change we need.
We developed a business model where our customers can see their money contributing to a better world. A business where you can see the physical difference between yesterday and today.
Where you can see a young guy cycling past your home on his homemade e-bike trailer because he wants to show there is another way of doing things… With soil under his finger nails and worms in his socks...
Where you can show the earthworms to your children and tell them why every life is precious to their own future... Where you can hold the dark vermicompost that gives you the feeling that you are holding gold.
You should pay such a company because there are few other opportunities where you can see your money making a real impact.
It requires a person who is conscious about life to see the beauty of this.
The Compost Kitchen’s service is R190/month, which is not the cheapest solution in the world, but that gives our customers a special reputation - a label of absolute ambassadors of recycling. Our customers are leaders of the future they want to see for their children… For those who are willing to pay R190/month for recycling, there can be no doubt that they care. As recognition of this wonderful spirit, we give our customers back a little box of vermicompost at the end of the month for free. But when our customers signed up, 90% of them never asked us ‘How much vermicompost do I get back?”, which shows that they simply just care about doing the right thing.
This is what paying for recycling is about.
Hopefully one day we will have such a remarkable recycling system that there will be no need for The Compost Kitchen. But until then, support those companies which are trying to make the dream come true.
Source for waste data: Department of Environmental Affairs, 2018, South Africa State of Waste Report