It’s Women’s Month – and Interwaste is celebrating the launch of its Give2Green initiative.

Women’s Month is a month where we not only highlight the triumphs of women but take stock of the barriers that they still face. In fact, our own Government has stated that Women’s Month allows us to gauge how far we have come in transforming the unequal power relations between men and women and creating a conducive environment to enable women to take control of their lives.

And we agree.

Every company should use this month as an opportunity to examine how they can facilitate socio-economic upliftment, to make a collective difference. This is a challenge that Interwaste has examined.  We have focused on how we continue to remain true to our core, by focusing on driving recycling and waste management issues in South Africa, but also to provide a sustainable approach to some of the key issues facing women. In line with this, we are pleased to launch our Give2Green initiative this month.

The Give2Green initiative, which still focuses on the recycling element, now gives consumers, and companies the option of either donating sanitary pads or wheelchairs to those that need it the most.  It is an adaption of our already well received Tops & Tags programme – where since 2011, we asked individuals, communities and corporates to bring in recyclable goods that could be used as a donation towards a wheelchair for those in need. A programme that saw us donate over 1 000 wheelchairs to worthy recipients as well as divert over 400 tons of waste from landfill disposal.Give2Green is the next evolutionary step in this journey.

We really want to focus on promoting women’s health, education, and empowerment to improve the lives of women and girls in our country and part of this journey means also addressing a very basic human right – access.  Today, far too many women, and girls, lack access to sanitary pads, which, we know can lead to absenteeism in schools, and at work, and this can affect education and income generating activities. In fact, I Menstruate, an organisation that is focuses on these issues has stated that today 83% of girl learners do not have regular access to menstrual hygiene products at school and at home. We hope to make a difference here – and believe that collectively, we can provide the access that is so very much needed.

So please join us on this journey as we try to help remove this barrier for so many women and allow them to allocate their limited resources to other much needed necessities.

To learn more, please visit www.give2green.co.za and start collecting your recycling for donation.