To mark World Environment Day 2025 and this year’s theme of “Ending Plastic Pollution”, Pick n Pay is celebrating a major environmental milestone: its Reverse Vending Machines (RVM) customer recycling initiative has now diverted over 1.1 million plastic and packaging recyclable items from landfill.
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The milestone marks a significant win in Pick n Pay’s long-term commitment to supporting circular economies and empowering everyday shoppers to play a direct role in reducing plastic waste.
Since launching the pilot in 2018, the RVM initiative has grown into a national network of 39 machines across Pick n Pay stores in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape, and the Eastern Cape.
Twelve new RVM machines were added in the past 12 months. Each machine accepts recyclable items, such as plastic bottles, aluminium cans, and glass containers, and rewards customers with Smart Shopper loyalty points, which can be used for everyday purchases.
“What started as a small test has evolved into a movement. This programme has shown that people are willing to recycle when it’s made convenient, accessible, and rewarding,” says Riley van Rooyen, sustainability lead at Pick n Pay, reflecting on the success of the programme.
As of May 2025, the initiative has collected and diverted over 1.1 million recyclable items from landfill, resulting in over 80,000 kgs of waste recycled and an estimated 1,200 tonnes of CO₂e emissions avoided.
Customers have received a total of over R135,000 in recycling rewards since the pilot launched, and over R56,000 in Smart Shopper points since the integration with the programme in August last year.
Each machine can hold up to 750 items and uses barcode recognition technology to ensure the correct sorting of recyclables. Customers simply scan their items and instantly receive Smart Shopper points, which they tend to use for groceries, airtime, and data. Prior to the integration with Smart Shopper, customers received recycling rewards through Imagined Earth.
“Ending plastic pollution isn’t a one-day project. But this initiative proves that scalable, community-led environmental solutions work. And on this World Environment Day, we’re proud to celebrate our plastic reduction initiatives wins with our customers and our partners in the project, who’ve helped us take over a million small steps toward a cleaner, more sustainable future,” says van Rooyen.
Despite focusing on a wider business turnaround strategy in FY25, Pick n Pay’s sustainability team continued to deliver meaningful progress. By prioritising high-impact, customer-facing initiatives – such as RVMs and packaging innovations – Pick n Pay maintained momentum on key environmental goals.
The retailer has exceeded its Plastic Pact 2025 target for packaging weight, reporting a 38% reduction in average packaging weight.
This also builds on the retailer’s broader efforts to reduce waste in the environment. Last year, it diverted nearly 13,000 tonnes of waste from its stores, the weight of approximately 2,100 average male adult elephants. Through its regular beach clean-ups, it has removed nearly 2,000kg of plastic waste from local beaches over the past five years.
