Insight & Article Archive

Johannesburg, 19 August 2025: The Paper and Packaging PRO Alliance is pleased to announce the relaunch of the upgraded South African Waste Pickers Registration System (SAWPRS).

SAWPRS is the national Government-initiated waste picker registration database that is integral to ensuring that waste pickers and their informal collection systems are fully integrated into the country’s formal recycling value chain and to substantially expand the collection of recyclables.

“It has been a long and difficult journey to rectify the technical challenges that were encountered
with the initial version of SAWPRS, which did not properly provide for the mammoth task of linking
thousands of buy back centre point-of-sale transactions to registered waste pickers and enabling
the associated service fee payments,” explains Bhavesh Patel, Executive Director of the PRO
Alliance.

“Multiple stakeholders have been involved in reaching this point and our gratitude
extends to all, but a special acknowledgement must go to our partner waste picker organisations
– the African Reclaimers Organisation (ARO) and the South African Waste Pickers Association
(SAWPA) – whose determination and perseverance helped drive the project forward.”

Improved collaboration between the various stakeholders, including the waste picker
organisations, the PROs, Government, non-government and private entities, as well as expert
input, access to critical system components, and the focused attention of a dedicated task team
led by the PRO Alliance, have enabled the development of the new system in a very short space
of time.

The focus in recent weeks has been on training the waste picker organisations, facilitating
SAWPRS registration drives across the country and rebuilding the credibility of SAWPRS
nationally.

The PRO-Alliance-led BBC200 Project is a multi-stakeholder national initiative intended to
accelerate the integration of waste pickers into South Africa’s formal waste economy. The project
uses the newly developed SAWPRS platform to ensure registration on the national database, and
with the assistance of a transactional platform and a cashless payment solution, will record
auditable transactions and enable payment of service fees.

From June 2025 to the end of 2026, the aim is to digitally onboard around 200 BBCs nationally,
thus enabling the payment of the service fee to approximately 80 000 waste pickers through a
cashless, auditable payment system.

The first significant milestone, 50 BBCs onboarded by the end of 2025 and 20 000 waste pickers registered, will prove the success of the first phase of the project and will guarantee funding from the member Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) for the second phase.

Further, for the first time, PROs will have access to real-time reporting on materials, volumes, and
payments and will ease the administrative burden on the organisations through automation and
system compliance.

Download Media Release (PDF)