Towards a circular economy: A cross-case analysis of recycling in three South African towns

ABSTRACT

The concept of circular economy includes three aspects from a human perspective, namely Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Studying human behaviour is important in understanding and evaluating the possible success of any of the three elements. We explored the link between household waste practices and local governments’ ability to provide proper waste management, as stipulated in the South African Constitution, as well as the factors linked to different waste management practices through a cross-case analysis using a mixed-method research design. Households in Calvinia, Philippolis and Polokwane handle waste differently due to different levels of municipal waste services rendered and the availability of local recycling options. Most households in all three towns indicated their willingness to take part in recycling. Surprisingly, the level of household income has no statistically significant impact on waste behaviour. On the other hand, the one factor that does impact on waste behaviour is the inclusion of recycling projects in school curricula.

KEYWORDS:

• Recycling
• circular economy
• behaviour
• practices
• reuse

Acknowledgements

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the first draft of the article. The usual disclaimer applies.

We acknowledge the South African Department of Science and Innovation and the National Research Foundation for funding the Research Chair in Waste and Society through the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Waste RDI Roadmap.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We thank the anonymous reviewer for this observation.

2 Coloured, formerly Cape Coloured, a person of mixed European (‘white’) and African (‘black’) or Asian ancestry, as officially defined by the South African government from 1950 to 1991.

3 The respondents were divided into two groups: those who answered ‘yes’ and indicated that their children were involved with recycling projects and those who indicated that they were not. Their responses, summarised in Table 3, are then compared to determine whether their behaviour differs. Reported behaviour relating to reclaimers and charities did indeed differ and these differences are statistically significant at 5%, based on all four reported tests of equality.

Additional information

Funding

South African Department of Science and Innovation through the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Waste Research, Development and Innovation Roadmap (CSIR/IU/WRIU/2018/019).