Pick n Pay celebrates World Environment Day with major recycling milestone

Marking World Environment Day 2025 on 5 June 2025, with this year’s theme of “Ending Plastic Pollution”, South Africa's major retailer, Pick n Pay celebrated a major environmental milestone: its Reverse Vending Machines (RVM) customer recycling initiative, which has now diverted over 1.1 million plastic and packaging recyclable items from landfill. 

Since launching the pilot in 2018, the RVM initiative grew into a national network of 39 machines across Pick n Pay stores in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, and the Eastern Cape.

Each machine accepts recyclable items, such as plastic bottles, aluminium cans, and glass containers, and rewards customers with Smart Shopper loyalty points, which can be used for everyday purchases.

“What started as a small test has evolved into a movement. This programme has shown that people are willing to recycle when it’s made convenient, accessible, and rewarding,” Riley van Rooyen, Sustainability Lead at Pick n Pay, said. 

As of May 2025, the initiative collected and diverted over 1.1 million recyclable items from landfill, resulting in over 80 000 kgs of waste recycled and an estimated 1 200 tonnes of CO₂e emissions avoided.

Customers received a total of over R135 000 in recycling rewards since the pilot launched, and over R56 000 in Smart Shopper points since the integration with the programme in August last year. 

Each machine can hold up to 750 items and uses barcode recognition technology to ensure the correct sorting of recyclables.

“Ending plastic pollution isn’t a one-day project. But this initiative proves that scalable, community-led environmental solutions work. And on this World Environment Day, we’re proud to celebrate our plastic reduction initiatives wins with our customers and our partners in the project, who’ve helped us take over a million small steps toward a cleaner, more sustainable future,” van Rooyen added. 

The retailer has exceeded its Plastic Pact 2025 target for packaging weight, reporting a 38% reduction in average packaging weight.

This also builds on the retailer’s broader efforts to reduce waste in the environment.

Last year, it diverted nearly 13,000 tonnes of waste from its stores, equivalent to the weight of approximately 2 100 average adult male elephants

Through its regular beach clean-ups, it has removed nearly 2,000kg of plastic waste from local beaches over the past five years.

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