It is no secret that educating children about the environment and the importance of recycling is key to ensuring that we create a generation of responsible adults.
It is with this in mind that last year, PETCO began looking for a partner who would have the experience and reach to spread the message about recycling (and specifically PET recycling) in schools in South Africa. PETCO found this partner in the Pick ‘n Pay Schools Club.
PETCO is the trading name of the PET Recycling Company NPC South Africa, a not-for-profit company incorporated in 2004. PETCO fulfils the PET industry’s role of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), being a voluntary industry driven and financed environmental solution for post-consumer PET plastic and the vehicle through which the PET industry self-regulates and co-ordinates its recycling activities.
To achieve this, everyone involved, from Government to the raw material producers, converters, brand owners, retailers, consumers, and recyclers, play their part in the solution. By imposing accountability over the entire life cycle of PET products and packaging, companies that manufacture, import and/or sell PET products and packaging are financially and physically responsible for such products after their useful life.
PETCO is not involved in the physical collection or recycling of waste PET in South Africa, choosing to remain outside of the PET recycling value chain. Instead, it acts as a Producer Responsibility Organisation (PRO) that financially supports, on behalf of its members, activities along the waste PET value chain.
This model presents the lowest risk to all stakeholders, negates the need for PET EPR funding becoming a drain on the national fiscus, and is the most cost-efficient solution for society. PETCO members include brand owners, resin producers, converters, and bottlers. Visit www.petco.co.za for more information.
Reaching 110,425 teachers across South Africa
Pick n Pay School Club is celebrating its 18th year of providing much-needed educational material, which now reaches 110,425 teachers and 2.36 million learners across South Africa. The PETCO learning programme is aligned to the CAPS curriculum, which adheres to the standards set by the Department of Education.
The material is designed to facilitate the learning process and culminates in the assessment of competency levels according to the standards set for each specific grade. The educator is supported by way of research and learning content that is presented clearly and is easy to implement in the classroom.
Therefore in partnership with the Pick ‘n Pay Schools club, PETCO created this user-friendly, fun, and factual Educators’ Workbook to help teach learners how their actions can have a less harmful impact on the environment. They will learn that littering is a bad habit, as well as the different things that can be done with waste.
By teachers completing the activities together with learners, teachers will teach them lessons that they will remember for life. The activities are aligned to the CAPS curriculum and to the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) , and cover the Life Skills curriculum standards and have been designed to ensure that learners have fun while learning.
The book encourages teachers to teach the children:
Not to litter, and to:
- reduce waste
- reuse materials
- collect materials that can be recycled
PETCO has entered into this partnership as a 5-year programme to ensure continuity and that the children’s knowledge is progressively built on year on year. Every year, PETCO will introduce additional grades to add to continuity with age progression and subject integration. In this first year we have created content for Grade 1-3.
The content will reach 500 schools, with 250 being in the lower to middle LSM group and 250 in the middle to upper LSM group. By working with PnP Schools Club, we will reach over 375 000 learners through 17 500 teachers. The selected schools are in the Western Cape, Gauteng and KZN.
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