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

The document examines the potential for recovering construction materials from builders' rubble at Cape Town's drop-off sites to mitigate a regional landfill airspace crisis. It highlights a June 2019 survey showing that contractors at some sites recover an average of 920 bricks weekly, suggesting a business case for low-skilled job creation and support for low-income housing. However, the viability of this model is challenged by labour costs, the need for consistent volumes of quality material, and theft.

• Cape Town and the broader Western Cape are facing a critical shortage of landfill space, with 22 out of 25 municipalities in the province having less than five years of landfill airspace remaining.
• A June 2019 survey of city drop-off facilities found that six of the seven reporting sites recovered an average of 920 bricks per week, with a total of approximately 3,020 bricks, 195 blocks, 649 pavers, and 6 tiles sold during that month.
• Brick recovery is identified as a mechanism for building economic resilience by creating low-skilled formal and informal jobs and providing materials for low-income housing construction and refurbishment.
• The economic viability of brick recovery is hindered by several factors, including the cost of labour for cleaning and recovering bricks relative to their value, the availability of staff, the requirement for sufficient volumes of quality material, and the occurrence of theft.

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} }