South Africa generates over 100 million tonnes of general waste, which usually ends up in landfills. With rising youth unemployment rates, the circular economy presents a viable economic opportunity for many young South Africans with bright ideas looking to make money.
In 2024, South Africans recycled 471,000 tonnes of plastic, with 28.4% of the waste processed into new plastic products.
This mechanical plastics recycling rate of 28.4%, which is above the global average, is promising and indicates opportunities for the circular economy.
The country is seeing a value-creation opportunity where we can establish ourselves as leaders in recycling.
Mr. Price Foundation believes that the youth of the country are at the forefront of imagining how to transform waste from a burden to an opportunity.
At a time when 7.7 million young South Africans are not in employment, education, or training (NEET), we cannot allow waste to remain both an environmental burden and a lost economic opportunity.
Bridging this gap requires a shift in the way young minds think about waste from a product of our consumption to a valuable input in our production.
While youth represent a tremendous opportunity, they cannot address these challenges alone.
The private and public sectors need to partner to help create economic pathways into green entrepreneurship.
South Africa is achieving high recycling rates
University = Innovation Engine
Universities are not just training places; They are innovation engines waiting to be fired up.
Higher education institutions are centers of applied education, development assistance, research and innovation.
True economic resilience takes shape when youth are prepared to transform systemic problems into commercially viable solutions.
A structured, purpose-driven development approach that embeds design thinking and circular economy principles, ensuring that solutions are developed with economic growth in mind.
From ideology to industrialization, South African youth need to be empowered to transform waste into value.
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Waste Innovation Challenge
The transition from an idea to a market-ready solution is often referred to as the “messy middle” of innovation.
Without a structured framework to foster innovation, brilliant ideas often remain unrealized.
That's why the Mr Price Foundation has launched the Waste Innovation Challenge in partnership with Universities South Africa (USAF)'s Entrepreneurship Development in Higher Education (EDHE) programme.
This entrepreneurship development initiative offers a practical route into green entrepreneurship through a structured, expert-led development framework that aims to help young people transform ideas into viable enterprises.
The program offers 400 participants development, design thinking principles, circular economy principles and more to support the generation of viable, scalable solutions.
Mister Price Foundation Waste Innovation Challenge invites students to re-imagine plastic waste solutions
The top 20 ideas presented will undergo intensive development to refine and test their ideas before being pitched for seed funding.
The R245,000 prize pool and six months of development support will ensure that the top five entrants are equipped to take their solutions from ideas to early-stage enterprises.
The initiative is open to students and recent graduates from all 26 universities in South Africa who wish to use their knowledge to solve the country's challenges.
All faculty are welcome.
Whether the opportunity is to transform plastic waste into construction materials or jewellery, these next-generation prototypes offer a glimpse of a new industrial sector taking shape.
Through our synergistic partnerships with EDHE, I see an opportunity to help catalyze the entrepreneurship landscape in South Africa.
Building a scalable youth entrepreneurship ecosystem requires alignment and collaboration between corporates and our public sector counterparts. The sum of our efforts guarantees a collective resilience that we cannot unlock without partnership.
When we come together to provide young people with the tools they need to create value, we build a future and an economy.
What is often dismissed as waste should be recognized as the raw material for the new economy.
South Africans need to think more ambitiously about the real potential of waste and start creating it instead of burying it.