Mpact Recycling Relocates Its Maydon Road Recycling Operation To Bridge City, KwaMashu, Kwazulu-Natal
Mpact Recycling Relocates Its Maydon Road Recycling Operation To Bridge City, KwaMashu, Kwazulu-Natal. On 25th April 2022 South Africa’s leading recycler, Mpact Recycling, opened its recycling operation in Bridge City, KwaZulu-Natal. The R150 million investment into this world-class infrastructure in the KwaZulu-Natal region will succeed in enabling the Group to service the Northern Coast corridor.
The project was brought about through close collaboration over several years between the Mpact Group, Mpact Recycling and the Mpact Paper businesses. Construction began in June 2021 and was completed in May 2022. The new operation allows for increased collection, sorting and baling of major waste streams such as paper, plastic, cardboard; as well as the central collection of glass. Ultimately, this keeps perfectly recyclable products from going to landfill and into the recycling stream quicker.
The new operation will result in improved operational efficiency, increased volume throughput and will reduce the reliance on grid-based energy supply. An initial solar installation of 130kW will provide the facility with enough power to enable “grid free” daytime operations. Over time, Mpact will consider expanding the solar installation and tying into the local supply grid for either resale or wheeling to its other KZN operations.
This investment made by the Mpact Group has been spent within the regional economy, including an estimated R15 million in the local community. Mpact Recycling is ultimately leading the charge as a long-term contributor towards the betterment of the community. Bridge City is a catalyst for economic growth and the empowerment of surrounding communities. Bridge City serves as the social and commercial centre to a population of over 800 000 people, who now have greater access to work, travel, shopping and business opportunities.
With this investment from the Mpact Group, we are confident that it will open opportunities for recycling SMME’s to form and develop in the area and ultimately continue to contribute to the economy well into the future.The Bridge City Precinct was identified as the most favourable to establish this bespoke materials processing facility for a number of reasons. These include proximity to major roads and developing infrastructure, as well as ease of access for existing suppliers, employees and contractors in an up-and-coming area, from both a business perspective and benefit to the communities.
The main warehouse, including a separate administration and operations centre, allowed Mpact Recycling to relocate its large sorting plant as well as two baling machines all under roof from its previous location. Keeping the operation under roof improves general working conditions for contractors and staff and allows improvements to be made to fire detection and fire prevention systems.
The storage of materials under roof also protects recyclables from adverse weather conditions, ultimately ensuring the quality of processed materials like cardboard is not compromised. All recovered paper material is supplied to paper mills, including our own Mpact paper mills, to be processed back into paper. This is then used to manufacture innovative board products, sold to the SA packaging industry. Other recovered material is sold onto other recyclers for conversion into glass, plastic and paper products.
The improved design and process flow will reduce offloading and loading times for suppliers and collection vehicles, thereby improving capacity for collections with the existing fleet. The process improvement also reduces risk to workers and suppliers as the congestion around the offloading area can be better managed. Mpact Recycling operates three sorting and baling plants within the KwaZulu-Natal province This makes KwaZulu-Natal an important province for Mpact Recycling’s general operations.
