Local start-up, the Recycling and Economic Development Initiative of SA (Redisa) last week scooped the 2014 Oracle Sustainability Innovation Award.
Announcing the winners of the award at the Oracle OpenWorld 2014 conference in San Francisco last week, Jon Chorley, Oracle's chief sustainability officer and group VP, said the award recognises the innovative use of Oracle technology to address the global sustainability challenge.
Sharing the award with Redisa were US media conglomerate Cox Enterprises; Italy's largest power company Enel; US bus operator Pace; Kenyan non-governmental organisation Safe Water Kenya; Uniliver; Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission; Spanish company National Administration of Power Plants and Electrical; US carrier Sprint; and Australian engineering and service provider Thiess.
Chorley said the winning organisations reduced their environmental footprint while also reducing costs using green business practices and Oracle technology. For these organisations, he noted, environmental sustainability has become an essential ingredient to doing business responsibly and successfully.
In an interview with ITWeb during the event, Hermann Erdmann, CEO of Redisa, said the start-up, which was founded 18 months ago, is making a difference in SA by turning the country's waste into worth.
Redisa aims to develop a sustainable South African tyre recycling industry through an integrated industry waste tyre management plan, said Erdmann.
He pointed out that SA is littered with millions of waste tyres. "It's problematic and growing at a dangerous 10 million a year. They pollute the environment and create fire hazards and breeding grounds for vermin and mosquitoes that spread disease. The time has come to turn the problem around, for the good of the environment, community and country."
Erdmann also noted the award highlights the start-up's hard work creating a management system which is an effective tool to build and grow a recycling industry, create jobs, deal with an environmental problem and at the same time make a significant contribution to reducing the national carbon footprint.
"Through our system, we have been able to achieve a number of milestones, including remediating 28 811 tonnes of waste tyres."
One of the important elements of Redisa systems is its geo-located data collection capabilities, Erdmann said. "In order to understand the extent of the waste tyre problem in the country, Redisa deployed a mapping system to help identify the sources of waste tyres such as tyre dealers, and waste tyre stockpiles.
To date, he noted, 1 683 waste tyre collection points and 96 stockpiles have been identified and mapped thanks to the IT system. Already, after less than 18 months of operation, over 50% of tyre dealers nationally are being serviced, and 743 jobs have been created.
Redisa is also using mobile technology, deployed at its depots and dump sites, for data collection and payment processing. All this data resides in a single environment, making access to information for reporting and decision-making very powerful, Erdmann concluded.
Share