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Circular City Labs South Africa

About

South African municipalities face mounting environmental and financial pressures as large amounts of single-use packaging waste end up in landfills or are illegally dumped. Reuse systems offer a solution by reducing waste generation, decreasing landfill reliance, and supporting the National Waste Management Strategy’s shift toward a circular economy.

Reuse systems drive economic development by supporting small and medium enterprises, particularly women-led businesses, which are vital to South Africa’s formal and informal economies. Implementing effective reuse strategies and policies can also enhance public-private partnerships, improve regulatory compliance under Extended Producer Responsibility laws, and create local employment opportunities in circular economy, logistics, and product innovation.

Join the conversation to shape South Africa's reuse economy

Building on the baseline report “Circular Economy in South Africa: Opportunities for Reusable Packaging Systems and Women’s Participation”, ICLEI Africa is now hosting an engagement platform to convene interested local government authorities, the private sector, and civil society. From February to September 2025, a series of virtual and in-person engagements will provide stakeholders with opportunities to exchange insights, address challenges, and explore practical pathways for developing a thriving reuse economy and reusable packaging systems in South Africa—translating theory into action.

Supporting these discussions, a dedicated Mural board will remain available online, capturing key learnings and enabling continued engagement between sessions.

Mural board

About Circular City Labs

The project ‘Circular City Labs (CCL) – Testing reusable packaging systems in cities’ aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through waste prevention by promoting reusable packaging systems and strengthening women’s participation in local circular economies. For this challenge, the cities Tirana in Albania, Tbilisi in Georgia, and Medellín in Colombia as well as South Africa have been selected.

The project is carried out by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). It is funded through the BMZ Initiative for Climate and Environmental Protection (IKU). ICLEI is the project’s main partner in regard to collaborating with municipalities.

About ICLEI Circulars

ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability is a global network working with more than 2500 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development. Active in 125+ countries, we influence sustainability policy and drive local action for low emission, nature-based, equitable, resilient and circular development.

Circular Development is one of ICLEI´s five strategic pathways towards sustainable urban development. Through the Circular Development pathway, local and regional governments decouple urban and economic development from resource consumption, encourage equitable access to resources and create closed-loop urban and peri-urban systems. They support new local economies that are productive and not extractive, where resources are exchanged and not wasted.

ICLEI Circulars is managed by the Circular Development Team at the World Secretariat (Bonn) in close collaboration with the ICLEI Regional Offices around the world.

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ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability
Kaiser-Friedrich-Str. 7
53113 Bonn, Germany

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