Environment Minister Edna Molewa's snazzy "junk" handbag stole the show in Durban yesterday when she urged local businessmen to start thinking much harder about turning muck into money.
Speaking at a business seminar hosted by the European Union, Molewa praised local entrepreneurs who have started to "upcycle" waste into new consumer products.
She was particularly taken by a stylish handbag made from an old rubber tyre tube.
It was made by Durban entrepreneur Colleen Deetlef, whose Innovative Waste Design produces fashion accessories and products from discarded waste.
The handbags retail for about R300.
TONY CARNIE
Molewa noted that South Africa still had a long way to go in reducing and extracting value from the waste tossed into dumps across the country.
Linda Godfrey, a senior scientist and waste researcher at the CSIR, told the seminar that up to 90% of waste was still dumped in municipal landfill sites.
He said that this had an unrecovered value of about R148-billion.
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