Money out of rubbish
Ntombentsha Msutu
NOZIQHAMO arts and craft and recycling was started by two women, Nosizwe Dingani and Thandeka Magalela in 1999 at the buy back centre were they started collecting rubbish and turning it into household material.
Jenny Rump, who is an environmental officer and part of the project, said there are a lot of companies that are involved.
"The project was first started by a number of companies such as PPC, Pick n Pay, Coca-Cola, Enviro-Serv, Sappi, Waste Trade Co and Zwartkops Conservancy to encourage residents of Motherwell to recycle. They could bring their bits of recycling and could be paid for it – it was meant to help clean up Motherwell as well as help people to make some money.
"In the beginning there were about three others who did just the recycling and the ladies did the craft side. The others found they did not make much money from recycling, so in the end they left and told the ladies they could take over everything," Rump said.
There are now six members making a living out of plastic.
"They do the normal recycling of cans, bottles, plastic, cardboard and paper. They first take out all the things they can make crafts from like plastic bags, plastic bottles and bottle tops.
"They also use non- recyclable things like records, Styrofoam, bottle tops. People also give bits of material in and all sorts of unwanted things," Rump said.
The items they make are environmentally-disposable. They sell their products from the Green Overall shop at Sunridge Park Shopping Centre and at Green Cycle.
Like any other project that is operating in the community they have dreams of one day being able to operate from a bigger centre.
"They are hoping to have a centre built where they can have water, electricity, better ablutions and enough space to recycle properly."
"Recently we have appealed to the Department of Economic Affairs, Environment and Tourism to help. I must commend these ladies, they do not give up – even last year when vandals got in and burnt two of their work containers and all the contents, they did not even consider giving up. They are fantastic," Rump said.