Ubuntu Projects

The Abahlengi Bemvelo Project

26 November 2024

Boxer’s ‘Abahlengi Bemvelo’ project, a Zulu term meaning ‘Rescuers of the Environment’, is a recycling initiative with two main goals: the creation of meaningful jobs through enterprise development and environmental sustainability. Boxer creates income for local community recyclers who sell the recyclable materials which Boxer collects from each store.

How It Works:

The Abahlengi Bemvelo project involves the buying and installing of waste balers to Superstores across the country. These balers are run by the existing small businesses which collect the paper and plastic objects and compress them into 40kg bales. The balers have been installed in branches served by Boxer’s Distribution Centres allowing the bales to be collected and returned to the DC through reverse logistics following the delivery of goods to the store. A waste company then collects the bales from the DC and each ‘Rescuer of the Environment’ business is paid directly by that waste company for the number of bales produced.

Positive Results For All:

Each year many thousands of tonnes worth of recyclable material is collected and thousands of kWh of energy are removed from the electricity grid. Forests of trees are saved and the carbon footprint from CO₂ emissions is significantly reduced. Dams of water have been saved as a result of the project and thousands of unnecessary metres of landfill space have been left empty.