Orange Bag Domestic Recycling Project

This example showcases the first city-wide recycling initiative in South Africa, E’Thekwini’s Orange Bag Domestic Recycling Project. This project illustrates an effective public-private partnership model that involves citizens, local businesses, social entrepreneurs and local government. It harnesses the desire to recycle by making it convenient for citizens, profitable for businesses, beneficial for civil society and local government.

Seongmisan: A village within a city

Seongmisan community is an urban community located within the City of Seoul. The residents in the area around a hill called Seongmisan have created a cooperative “village” model within the urban context, where faceless individualism and fierce sense of competition is prevalent. What is unique about Seongmisan community is that it was able to create a location-based, traditional “village-like” solidarity among residents through active participation and collaboration of community projects. The continuous trust and relationship-building among residents was the key to creating what proved to be an innovative and resilient community within an urban context.

© The Hope Institute

A Dump with a Difference: The Future of Landfills in South Africa

The idea for Marianhill came about the mid-1990s before the Kyoto Protocol was even signed. Gunning for a conservancy status for the landfill from the start, e’Thekwini instituted a meaningful consultative process with residents and civil society.

Large waste removal vehicles travel to the smallest landfill of the e’Thekwini Municipality, located 31kms outside Durban, the capital city of the KwaZulu-Natal province. The Mariannhill Landfill only receives 450 tonnes of general municipal waste from the surrounding areas of Pinetown, Westville, Queensborough and Kloof. As these vehicles enter the site, a sign welcomes visitors to enjoy the birds and animals in the grasslands, forests and wetlands.

Bucking every waste management trend in South Africa, the Mariannhill Landfill Conservancy is a dump with a difference. At Mariannhill there are no unpleasant odours or a speck of litter strewn about. The site is separated from the surrounding middle-income and low-cost housing areas by only 200 metres of indigenous plants and trees.