The Western Cape Industrial Symbiosis Programme (WISP), delivered by GreenCape, develops mutually profitable links between companies from all industrial sectors, so that under-utilised resources such as energy and water, and/or materials from one company can be recovered, reprocessed and re-used by others.
WISP helped connect the Fugard Theatre with the City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management Department and other various charities who could make use of the theatre’s half used batteries.
Although there isn’t yet a solution for diverting these batteries from the landfill once they’ve reached their end of life, this partnership did result in the following benefits:
- The City of Cape Town is saving R21 000 per year by using The Fugard Theatre’s half-used batteries, instead of buying new ones.
- The full potential of the battery is utilised, rather than 50% of the charge being wasted.
- There is a reduction in the extraction of virgin materials for the production of new batteries.
- The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management Department and the other charities helped can use the money saved to provide a better service to the homeless, abused children and the aged, thereby improving their quality of life.
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