Waste isn't South Africa's problem. Wasted value is.
Stats SA's 2025 General Household Survey found that 10.5% of households separated or sorted recyclable material for recycling, with Limpopo at 6.2%. RÉCIR explores the coordination layer between the people, organisations and businesses participating in the circular economy.
By Thapelo Tlailana
Founder & Digital Solutions Specialist, Tswelopele Synergy Solutions
The problem
Waste is not only a disposal issue. It is also a coordination issue involving people who collect materials, businesses that generate them, buyers, recyclers and organisations trying to demonstrate environmental value.
What we observed
Value can be lost when those participants operate in disconnected systems. Information about materials, activity and transactions can be difficult to coordinate across the chain.
The question we asked
Could a digital system make the participants, material flows and value created through recycling more visible and easier to coordinate?
Why we built RÉCIR
RÉCIR explores a circular-economy operating system connecting corporates, NGOs, SMEs, recyclers, buy-back centres and waste pickers.
What we are testing
The prototype is testing how different roles can participate in one workflow, including requests, donations, assets, batches and activity records. It is not yet a measured claim about recycling volumes or environmental impact.
External sources are used to ground the problem context. They are not evidence of impact from the product itself.