 Established in 2001, Mr Recycle is a community driven job creation through recycling service. We use the collection and processing of your unwanted materials, of a social, environmental & financial value, to create jobs and skills training for previously employed and commercially unemployable people. The collected materials are delivered to geographically distributed job creation centers, where job & skills training for commercially unemployable occurs in a safe and supervised conditions. This is done with the belief that removing people from the streets and our communities by providing jobs in and/or adjacent to disadvantaged communities will lead to a tangible reduction in opportunistic crime (and the number of taxi's on the roads) by reducing the number of people walking the streets looking for work or opportunities to commit criminal acts. Our Vision: To provide homeowners and the broader business community with an inexpensive, tailor made and professional recyclable material and unwanted yet usable goods collection service, and to have those collected goods delivered to job creation centers where they can best be utilized for the benefit of Our Earth, and the community as a whole. Our Mission:
Our Service: Established in 2001, we collect bags of mixed recyclable materials; useful, yet unwanted clutter, raw kitchen and garden waste as well as bokashi treated food waste as well as flattened and bundled cardboard from participating households, corporations and industry on an alternative day to the waste collection day. The materials are delivered to
approved sorting facilities, including the largest sorting facility in
the
entire Southern Hemisphere, for further processing or distribution into the
community. Corporate/Social Investment Social: Your donated useful yet unwanted clutter is diverted from the waste stream, and mostly through charities, delivered to various disadvantaged communities, resulting in better living conditions in the communities. Once well supported in a community, job creation centers will be established, and the surplus funds generated through the sale of materials will be provided for the use of the community, as per the requirements of the community. Corporate: We allow "corporate" the inexpensive opportunity to be "responsibly Green." By reducing the amount of waste send to landfill through the recyclable collection service, we allow the participants the opportunity to save money on current waste disposal services, reduce the actual waste that arrives at the landfill sites as well as to be involved in job creation for the skilled, semi-skilled and commercially unemployable.
The collection system: The collection system - copied from the family business which I managed for 12 years before launching the Mr Recycle women empowerment project in 2001 - gives me the total piece of mind to state that, barring unforeseen incidents, the collections will be rendered as promised. Collectively, our clients have had more than 40 successful years of outstanding service! A few of our more memorable moments We were able to create 33 jobs for
commercially unemployable people, and remove in excess of 40 000 kilograms a
month from the Helderberg waste stream for a number of years - until the City passed a law which prohibits any service provider rendering the same or similar service the City chooses to provide. Mrs Zille, then Mayor of the City of Cape Town and now Premier of the Western Cape, publicly congratulated Martin Brink of Mr Recycle at a Ratepayers meeting in Gordons Bay, and instructed him not to give up the fight, saying amongst other things "we need your expertise, don't give up and never surrender your dream!" 6 months later "her" waste department started with their anti-competition drive, and a year later the law that destroys local businesses attending to the real needs of the community, was approved and we were "run" out of our home town so that the City contractors could apply a version of our systems, excluding the important bit where locals are empowered to continue the project after the funding has 'dried up". We were able to assist Beaumont School to win a number of computers in 2007 through the Consol Glass School competition, while helping them to grow their school recycling program into what it is today. Somerset College "adopted" Mr Recycle, and donated the value of the papers collected by Mr Recycle towards the expansion of the PlanetGUARDIAN project. Gardena (Western Cape) donated 60 pairs of leather gloves, 60m of hosepipe and assorted fittings for the sorting facility. Lourensford Estate's Winery provided us with access to their unlabelled wine surplus, which we were able to sell to our PlanetGUARDIANS at a small profit, helping us through a "bad" winter. The Nameless Pub; San Francisco Spur; Seafarers Pub; Henry's Pub and Restaurant; the Strand golf club and Euroberry supported the Mr Recycle sorting facility financially, as there really isn't much money in the re-sale of materials unless great tonnages are sorted and sold. Working with the waste transport company, Cart Away, for more than 2 years, Martin was able to learn about mass collection logistics, the skills required and the kind of experiences one could expect to have. Runners up the Entrepreneur of the Year, Africagrowth Awards, for 2007/8/9. We were able to reach an understanding with the largest, and best equipped, sorting facility in the entire Southern Hemisphere, that all the materials supplied by the PlanetGUARDIANS, and delivered to this site, would sorted and sent for processing. Nothing recyclable goes to "waste" here! We have attended most of the waste management seminars over the last 8years, and spoken with many of the waste management directors, thereby allowing us to build our systems to comply with, and exceed, the vision of the City, and of it's waste department. Michelle Ruthven joined Mr Recycle in 2008, injecting not only a fresh outlook, but bringing with her the many years of experience learned in the corporate and social environments. A few of our service achievements Provided the waste minimization required for the ABSA CAPE EPIC, 2009 Provided the waste minimization required for Global Spokes, 2010 Working directly with the City of Cape Town's Mayor, Dan Plato, we were able to establish a job creation center in the severely disadvantaged community, Uitsig, which has the highest number of registered TB sufferers in the Western Cape. Unfortunately, due to factors beyond our control the project collapsed, but the lessons learned have already proved to be invaluable. In 2011, Mr Recycle signed a Private-public partnership agreement with the Stellenbosch Municipality. Stellenbosch will now soon be known as the town the smallest environmental footprint. Watch this space... We could go on and on about the many wonderful growth opportunities we have been blessed with, but all that is really important is that out of each situation lessons and growth opportunities for Mr Recycle and the PlanetGUARDIANS have resulted. |