In an opinion piece responding to IOL reporting on Resolve Communications and Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of South Africa (REDISA), Stacey Jansen argues that South Africa is facing an escalating and largely ignored waste tyre crisis, and pushes back on suggestions that her use of a communications firm to place a critical op-ed amounts to a political attack on a minister
According to Jansen, South Africa generates more than 70,000 waste tyres a day and recycles less than 30% of them, with the unrecycled majority accumulating on the urban fringe and around informal settlements, where they are often burned for scrap metal, releasing carcinogens and heavy metals into the air and leaching pollutants into groundwater.
Jansen contends this problem in South Africa was largely being solved by REDISA, an industry-funded body established through a producer-responsibility levy rather than government money. She states that between 2013 and 2017, REDISA grew the number of tyre recyclers from 12 to 32, raised the recycling rate from 4% to 55%, created more than 3,000 jobs and around 250 small businesses, and gained international recognition.
Jansen claims REDISA was then unlawfully shut down under the administration of former president Jacob Zuma, with waste-tyre management subsequently absorbed into a state entity. She notes that the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled in 2019 that REDISA’s liquidation had been unlawful, and says REDISA is still pursuing a damages claim against the liquidators involved.
She argues the effects of REDISA’s removal remain visible today, pointing to tyre depots filled beyond capacity, a collapse in collection, and the loss of jobs for collectors and transporters that have not returned. Jansen also asserts that the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment has spent seven years and substantial public funds unsuccessfully attempting to produce a functioning Industry Waste Tyre Management Plan, and that the Waste Management Bureau’s data remains incomplete or outdated. She cites a broader estimate that effective management of just 13 of South Africa’s waste streams could add 1.5 percentage points to GDP.
On the allegation that her advocacy is politically motivated, Jansen maintains that raising concerns through legitimate channels, including with professional communications support, is not evidence of a plot, and warns that treating all such criticism as an attack on a minister undermines normal democratic accountability. She also argues that ongoing litigation, which she says is a damages claim against the liquidators rather than against the department, does not make engagement with the department improper, noting the department became involved because it granted the liquidators blanket immunity.
Jansen concludes that South Africa’s waste tyre crisis is “large, worsening, and solvable,” and argues it deserves more attention than what she characterises as distracting conspiracy theories.
