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Development Section Of Southafrica.info : A Survey Essay

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Introduction and Purpose of Study

According to the sustainable-development section of SouthAfrica.Info: a survey done in 2010 showed that only 3.3% of South Africa’s urban settlements would take the initiative to recycle in their households and 27% would claim to recycle a little bit. This was an alarming figure to the ‘Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’ (CSIR), who conducted the survey. More than 42 million cubic meters of waste is produced in South Africa each year. 45% of this waste is generated alone, by the province of Gauteng. Concerned by these figures, the CSIR conducted a landfill test in 2013 whereby they established that 25% of the waste generated by Gauteng is actually recyclable waste such as: glass, paper, cans and other products. On average, every hour 250 000 plastic bottles are dumped into landfills across the country and never used again (the plastic decomposes over 700 years). 100 acres of trees are being felled every minute to produce products for people. A study showed that in every dustbin in an urban settlements home, about 60% of the waste could’ve been recycled or reused and about 50% of the organic waste could’ve been composed. These recyclable products make its way to landfills and then dumped across South Africa because the citizens living in the urban settlements (Gauteng) do not take the initiative to sort their waste at their own households.
This is a major Settlement issue.

Reusing and Recycling will benefit the Environment by

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