OVERVIEW Manufacturing
OVERVIEW Manufacturing The manufacturing potential of trees is under the spotlight. The manufacturing industry is making more plastic than the environment can cope with. Many large operations in Mpumalanga make the kind of chemicals and compounds that go into plastic. Forestry South Africa (FSA) believes that wood from responsibly managed plantations and forests could be part of the solution. With several companies operating in the forestry and paper sectors in Mpumalanga, the province could play an increasingly important role in mitigating excessive reliance on plastics in years to come. In connection to Earth Day 2024, FSA released information about how the forestry sector is creating substitutes for energyheavy materials that are derived from fossil fuels. The FSA further noted that paper packaging is making a comeback across the world as shoppers become increasingly more demanding of sustainability from brands. From steel to chemicals, petroleum and stainless steel to paper and fruit juice, Mpumalanga makes a wide variety of products. Fuel, petroleum and chemical production occurs in the southern Highveld region clustered around Sasol’s plants. The Sasol chemicals and liquid fluids complex at Secunda is a vital component of Mpumalanga’s manufacturing sector but concern about environmental factors that are increasingly coming into play around the world are causing the group to rethink many of its processes. Also in the southern section is the town of Standerton which hosts several large manufacturing plants. Chief among these are a chicken-processing facility and two mills, one for textiles and the other for crushing soy. The northern Highveld area, including Middelburg and eMalahleni (Witbank), is home to ferro-alloy, steel and stainlesssteel concerns. In the Lowveld, agricultural and forestry products are processed while Sappi’s giant mill is close to the company’s forests south-west of the provincial capital, Mbombela. Timber firm and board manufacturer PG Bison is in the process of spending more than R2-billion on increasing capacity at its Mkhondo plant. SECTOR INSIGHT Food and forestry are the main employers in manufacturing. Laboratory work on lignosulfonate. TSB Sugar runs two large mills and produces fruit juices through a subsidiary company. Nelspruit is the centre of the province’s food-processing cluster. Approximately 70% of jobs in the manufacturing sector are in food and forestry. Middelburg-based Columbus Stainless is South Africa’s only producer of stainless-steel products. ■ ONLINE RESOURCES Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency: www.mega.gov.za South African Furniture Initiative: www.furnituresa.org.za South African Iron and Steel Institute: www.saisi.co.za MPUMALANGA BUSINESS 2024/25 44 PHOTO: Sappi
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