Brick recovery: Building economic resilience through understanding waste streams in Cape Town, South Africa.

SSSSS

• The City of Cape Town (CCT) is conducting research and surveys to increase knowledge of waste streams to build economic resilience and support the circular economy. The focus is on assisting contractors at drop-off sites to maximize the value of builders' rubble, specifically the recovery of pavers, blocks, and bricks, to divert material from landfills.
• There is a critical landfill airspace crisis in the Western Cape, where 22 out of 25 municipalities have less than five years of landfill airspace remaining. This situation is expected to persist in the medium term, creating a need for municipalities to diversify waste management models and explore private sector partnerships.
• A June 20SSSSSS 2019 survey of 13 city drop-off facilities (with 7 providing data) found that six sites recovered an average of up to 920 bricks weekly. During that survey month, these six facilities sold approximately 3,020 bricks, 649 pavers, 195 blocks,SSS and 6 tiles.
• The economic viability of brick recovery is hindered by several challenges, including the availability of sufficient volumes of quality material, the cost of labor required to clean and recover bricks relative to their value, staff availability, and the theft of bricks.
• Brick recovery is viewed as a mechanism for economic resilience by creating low-skilled formal and informal jobs and providing materials for residential construction and refurbishment for low-income housing.

APA

GreenCape (2020). Brick recovery: Building economic resilience through understanding waste streams in Cape Town, South Africa. https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GreenCape_Resilience_Case_Study_Brick-Recovery_WEB-3.pdf

Chicago

GreenCape. Brick recovery: Building economic resilience through understanding waste streams in Cape Town, South Africa. 2020. https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GreenCape_Resilience_Case_Study_Brick-Recovery_WEB-3.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=GreenCape |title=Brick recovery: Building economic resilience through understanding waste streams in Cape Town, South Africa. |date=2020 |url=https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GreenCape_Resilience_Case_Study_Brick-Recovery_WEB-3.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greencape2020brick, author = {{GreenCape}}, title = {{Brick recovery: Building economic resilience through understanding waste streams in Cape Town, South Africa.}}, institution = {GreenCape}, year = {2020}, url = {https://greencape.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GreenCape_Resilience_Case_Study_Brick-Recovery_WEB-3.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }