The PETCO Collector Campaign.

PETCO, or the PET Recycling Company, is an NPO and South Africa’s leading PET plastic recycling body.

Water bottles? Shampoo bottles? Tomato-ketchup-squeezy-bottles?

Precisely that.

And PETCO does their level best to help and recycle them all.

But in order to be recycled, they first have to be collected.

Informal collectors rise before the sun and endure blistering walks through streets and neighbourhoods to find plastic bottles. They sell these to buy-back centres where they are able to earn a source of income and provide for their families. Collectors know which bottles are of value, how bottles need to be flattened and what the benefits of recycling them are.

We were tasked to create a positive sentiment of collectors among residents and recycling folk alike.

In SA, informal collectors are the last line of defence and the driving force behind our recycling economy too.

As a country, South Africa has a recycling rate of 67%*.

This is made possible to the 90 000 informal waste collectors.

*2019 statistics.