Some of Polyco’s achievements over the years under her leadership include making more than R65m available for project funding in South Africa, creating more than 7,500 income-earning opportunities in the sector, having more than 64,000 tonnes of polyolefin plastic collected by the collection projects in which Polyco invested in, more than 26,000 tonnes of polyolefin plastic recycled by the recycling projects they invested in, developing the Packa-Ching collection business and launching the Million+ Plastic Recycling Revolution campaign to consumers across South Africa.
“It is an incredible experience to be able to support a deserving company to grow further and to do even more to help make polyolefin packaging waste a valuable resource for our economy. I would like to acknowledge the Polyco board and our Polyco members when it comes to how they have embraced the support of the value chain across all polyolefin substrates – rigid, flexible and multilayer packaging – to build the knowledge base and relationships in preparation for mandatory EPR. Without this robust level of support, the operations team would not be in the strong position Polyco is in today, ready to transition to mandatory EPR in South Africa,” says Naudé.
Led and shaped by Naudé, seven Packa-Ching units are now operating across South Africa, three million kilograms of used packaging has been collected, and more than R2,5m has been paid to community members who need it the most and who see the value in this used packaging material.
“Polyco is destined to grow and develop extensively under mandatory EPR, and under the leadership of Patricia Pillay as the new CEO of Polyco. Patricia’s expertise, combined with the passion of the Polyco operations team, will allow the heart of Polyco to continue to beat strongly for years to come,” concludes Naudé.
Patricia Pillay takes over as Polyco’s CEO in August and brings with her vast legal, advocacy and regulatory experience having served as the executive for legal, regulatory and sustainability at the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa for the past ten years and as the current CEO of the Beer Association of South Africa.
“I am indeed honoured to take over the reins from a strong leader like Mandy who grew Polyco to be the well-oiled machine it is today. I look forward to this next phase of Polyco’s journey, where we have extended our MOI to include all plastics and not just polyolefins, to meet our stakeholders needs. Working together we can minimise waste in the environment and make South Africa the cleanest country in Africa,” concludes Pillay.
