Money for Jam (M4JAM) the micro-jobbing platform which helps users to earn cash for small jobs, is going green. M4JAM in partnership with Green Office is paying users R5 to return toner cartridges to Green Office for recycling.
“There are over a million printer cartridges sold in South Africa every month and we currently are only collecting 10% of that nationally. So we are partnering with Money for Jam where they put out for jobbers to earn an added income by just collecting and recycling empty printer cartridges through Green Office,” said Bevlen Sudhu, the head of national procurement for Green Office.
However, Green Office has been at the forefront for printer cartridge recycling. “In 2013, Green Office saved 602,761 kilograms of plastic and other waste from ending up in landfills through our recycling and remanufacturing efforts. This is an energy savings equivalent to driving a medium sized petrol car over 3.5 million km (distance equivalent to driving the circumference of the earth 87 times),” highlighted Green Office’s website.
Pilot testing
The pilot initiative will, at first, only be available in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban. It will start on the 20 October in Johannesburg, and run for a week, before going to Durban and then Cape Town. If the pilot is successful, then it will be extended to over 1000 locations across the country.
Sudhu believes that the pilot project can be beneficial to everyone. “Money for Jam has over 60 000 registered on their portal, and it can be worth something to every jobber to collect cartridges. We pay R5 a cartridge, so if one person collects 500 cartridges, that is R500 they can make,” said Sudhu.
Collecting printer cartridges is not the only recyclable initiative M4JAM is looking at. “We are currently also in talks with a glass manufacturer, a tyre recycling organisation and a beverage company about similar recycling projects using the M4JAM platform. The concept can be extended to any recyclable, including plastic, cardboard, light bulbs, e-waste and paper,” said Andre Hugo, M4JAM chief Jammer.