The company has made enormous strides since that day. Not only has Collect-a-Can been able to prove the sceptics wrong (there are still some of them today), it has grown from a young fledgling can collector to an established brand name on the southern African environmental scenery.

The weeks preceding the launch of Collect-a-Can, new staff members were recruited and appointed, systems were worked out and put into place and offices were prepared to house the new staff complement. Like today, the numbers of Head Office staff were limited to look after key functions.

Everybody had to be briefed about the objectives of the company, what we were setting out to do and why we were doing it. Special briefing sessions were held to ensure everybody, from the receptionist to the financial staff knew what to say when people were phoning in to ask what to do with the cans they have recovered.

The Head Office was based in Industria in Johannesburg, adjacent to a site used by Metal Box (now Nampak) to handle mostly industrial scrap generated in the can making process of their food can division. At the time, used cans were already being handled and processed at the site, although it was not a focused operation. A similar site existed in Silverton, Pretoria and a much smaller operation in Durban.

The main challenge at the time was to set budgets to determine how many cans we were anticipating to recover and the costs associated to it. It was almost a thumb suck operation because used beverage cans were considered to be complete waste at the time. Steel mills did not accept it (because of the tin content) and Iscor (now ArcelorMittal) and Metal Box (Nampak) had to subsidise the purchasing price of the cans because used cans had no value. In addition, there was an enormous backlog of cans lying around in the environment and we did not know how many of these would be recovered. It was quite a balancing act.

The first Chairman of Collect-a-Can, Kevin Robertson, was adamant that we needed to achieve specific recovery rates. At the time we estimated the recovery rate to be about 18% because limited information about used can recoveries was available. The first objective was to get to 25% in the first six months; then 35% a year later and so on until the figure of 50% was set to be achieved in 1996/7. History recorded that Collect-a-Can not only achieved this, but the recovery rate has never dropped since then.

Many things have changed since 1 April 1993. Our first democratic elections were only held a year later; there were no other established recycling focused operations (except for very small operators) in the country; there was not even talk of a Waste Management Bill or global warming, although the first noises about the forming of holes in the earth's ozone layer had just been made. On the recycling front, scrap dealers did not accept used cans because of its ?rubbish? nature and the word e-waste did not even exist.

Over the years all of this has changed.

As part of its commitment to the environment, Iscor started accepting the cans to mix it with other scrap for mild steel production.

We now have a Waste Management Bill in its final stages in Parliament; we have focused glass and plastic recovery and recycling companies; we have a worldwide movement to promote greener living and scrap metal dealers are competing to buy-in used cans.

All of this has contributed to the success of Collect-a-Can. In the beginning we had to negotiate special arrangements particularly with people in outlying areas to get their recovered cans to one of our branches. Nowadays there are scrap dealers buying from them. Collect-a-Can was instrumental in setting up entrepreneurs to handle the can recovery process in some of these areas. Many of these have become multi-recycling companies, handling anything from used cans to paper, plastics and even e-waste.

Funani Mojono, Managing Director of Collect-a-Can has said: ?Collect-a-Can's role has also changed in the process and new challenges are ahead. We have adapted to the changing environment and we are committed more than ever before to achieve our vision: ?To see a land where the beverage can exists in perfect harmony with the environment??.

For more information please contact:

Collect-a-Can: 011 466 2939

www.collectacan.co.za