Home The EcoCity Concept City of Johannesburg The EcoVillage The Co-operatives Youth Environmental Co-operatives Iteke Waste Recycling Co-operative Shova Lula Cycle Co-operative EcoBanking EcoBuilders Community Ownership Energy Co-operative EcoVillage: a vision of the future The Trustees Acknowledgements	Iteke Waste Recycling Co-operative Less than a mile from the Iteke Recyling Co-operative, is the area widely regarded as the genesis of the EcoCity programme. This is the site where apartheidera councillors decided to place the toxic dumpsite of Chloorkop in the early Nineties. An unprecedented campaign mounted by local and other activists at the time built environmental awareness in the community. That awareness is now symbolised by Iteke, formed as a community-owned co-operative five years ago. The recycling project was envisaged as a twin weapon in the fight against waste and unemployment. Today it employs 40 people, 30 of whom are fulltime and the others are waste entrepreneurs, who collect waste in the community and bring it to the centre for cash. In addition, it has generated a keen sense of environmental protection. The entrepreneurs include women and school children who work in their free time. In 1999, the project received a boost in the form of core funding and support from the United Nations Development Life Programme (UNDP Life) — allowing the local leaders to establish offices, toilets, a warehouse and a fence. Solly Ramokgano was appointed its first manager and he set about conceiving a plan to create an ecologically conscious way of dealing with the 4 503 000 tons of waste generated by Ivory Park and the surrounding suburbs. Bottles, glass, paper, cardboard, plastics and tin are brought by waste collectors to the Iteke Buy-back Centre. With one van, the co-operative also collects waste from schools, churches, youth groups and businesses. It’s 40 workers earn an average R770 a month, with glass fetching 15 c/kilo, while paper earns them 20 c/kilo. With large quantities of paper in the waste stream, two papermaking projects were started as an Iteke offshoot. The Twanano Papermaking Project forms part of the national poverty relief programme run by the Witwatersrand Technikon. It helps local craftspeople to create products that find markets, both in the community and in the fancier shops of the suburbs. In addition to skills transfer, a hard economic benefit has seen 25 green jobs created by the papermaking projects. A key, long-term environmental benefit is that reduced volumes of waste are sent to the landfill. Iteke is also an activist co-operative which regularly holds clean-ups. Recently it rehabilitated a local stream and the community successfully lobbied to stop a manufacturing plant being established in Ivory Park because of the dangers from toxic waste. Iteke has been such a success that partnerships have been struck up with a range of businesses. Bottles go to Enviroglass in the nearby industrial hub of Germiston, while paper is taken to Mondi. Coca-Cola pitched in with the deposit on the truck, while the soft-drinks manufacturer also provides drinks during Iteke functions. A few years ago the EcoCity Trust, through its Danced grant, gave Iteke funds to continue its work. This was later augmented by a grant last year from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, which also came on board as a partner through the poverty alleviation grant. Iteke’s success is spreading like wildfire — similar buy-back centres have been started in two other townships and Iteke’s managers are thinking of expanding into the suburbs. “We have proved there is value in waste. Iteke is now a sustainable business which has helped to reduce joblessness," says co-op chairperson Robert Malele. More recently the Body Shop (a joint venture between Body Shop and New Clicks), has placed large orders with Iteke and Twanano for its products. They also want to assist in building capacity for the cooperative through training and business development. It is partnerships like this that will take the EcoCity cooperatives into their next phase, beyond marginal existence and into commercial activity.   For the United Nations Development LIFE Programme, the project is exciting because it is a “microcosm of sustainability”, says Kule Chitepo, the national coordinator of the Urban Livelihoods programme, abbreviated as Life. “It encapsulates the themes of people, planet and prosperity,” he says, pointing out that the different projects work together as a seamless whole by bringing together the different components. The Iteke project, supported initially by Life, is about the planet because it radically reduces waste; it is about prosperity because it creates jobs and it is about people because it has raised awareness that is being passed down through generations. Moreover, “it empowers local communities through selfemancipating projects”, says Chitepo. The UNDP has used the model in helping other communities set up similar schemes in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. No project is absolutely replicable, but Chitepo says they have used design elements as well as its success factors. A crucial element of it’s success in general, and Iteke’s in particular, is the level of energy displayed both by its management team and in the community. “Sustainability needs to be driven,” he says. Another success factor is that the project is multi-layered, drawing in support from all levels of government — local, provincial and national. “Now it’s link with the World Summit on Sustainable Development brings it to the global level,” concludes Chitepo.