Help save Cape Town's rapidly filling landfills - in your own home and at no cost! By using the City's free household rubbish recycling service, Think Twice (before you throw away!), you can save up to nearly two kilograms of rubbish per day. At the moment, up to 80% is unnecessarily sent to the city's three remaining landfills in Coastal Park, Vissershok and Bellville South 

How Think Twice benefits Cape Town 

Although a new regional landfill has been planned to supplement Cape Town's landfills, this is more than 40 kilometres further away than the current sites, and the increased distance will increase waste disposal costs considerably. So far, Think Twice, which was launched as a project in November 2007 in Melkbosstrand, Bloubergstrand, Parklands and Pinelands, has diverted thousands of kilograms of waste away from landfill.

Think Twice also helps prevent the carbon emissions that are generated in making items from new raw materials. It also boosts employment in the recycling industry and provides many of the raw materials that are used in manufacturing. Resin Roof Tiles, for example, uses the plastic that computer monitors are made from to manufacture South African National Standards (SANS) approved roof tiles. Nampak Tissue uses white waste office paper to make many of the tissue and toilet paper products that are found on supermarket shelves. Many community projects use waste materials to make saleable products, such as the Clover Mama Africa project, which creates useful items from the fabric off-cuts generated by the CapeStorm clothing factory.

How it works

Every week, the City's Think Twice contractor issues participating households with a clear bag. Simply throw your dry waste (clean and dry paper, cardboard, plastic bags, containers and bottles, glass and tin cans) into this bag, and place it in the upper portion of the bin on the usual collection day. Make sure that any waste that goes into the bag is clean and dry, remove caps from plastic containers, and flatten plastic and metal containers. All other waste that is not dry waste i.e wet paper and food waste should be placed in the lower portion of the bin). Garden refuse (leaves, grass cuttings etc.) as well as hazardous waste should be taken to the nearest drop-off site.

Think Twice contractors collect these bags from the City and take them to a materials recovery facility for reprocessing and re-using.

At present Think Twice is offered in the following areas. If your area is not listed and you'd like to know when it will be, contact the contractor nearest you.