Living on waste
In most developing countries, waste management has remained a hydra-headed problem, defiling all solutions. But in the midst of this challenge, enterprising Nigerians are capitalising on the situation to earning not only a living, but also becoming employers. Now, female entrepreneurs are rising to the challenge and setting up their own recycling businesses and creating employment. Daniel Essiet reports.
Two women’s success stories show how green entrepreneurship could be an answer to both youth unemployment and environmental degradation. One is Bilikiss-Adebiyi Abiola, co founder, Wecyclers, a Lagos based waste management company. The other is Chief Executive, T. Cynthia Nigeria Limited, Mrs.Titilola Cynthia Saka.
Mrs. Abiola is the one-woman dynamo who is taking the waste business world by storm. Her life started in what seemed to be an ideal situation. She holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from Fisk University and an M.Sc in computer Science from Vanderbilt University in the United States.
After graduation, Mrs Abiola worked with the IBM Corporation, United States, on a social media platform for the Enterprise. While there, she had the inspiration to form a waste management company. She felt Nigeria needed a lot of support with waste management and recognised there were a lot of opportunities within the sector to be explored. An MBA graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management,United States, she moved back to home to set up WeCyclers.
On her return to Lagos, she confronted a city with a major waste management crisis, producing 10,000 tonnes of refuse daily, much of which clog the city streets and leaches chemicals into the soil and groundwater.
To solve the problem, she launched the social enterprise, Wecyclers, to incentise low-income households to hand off their recyclable goods to a fleet of low-cost cargo bikes.
The company uses a fleet of custom made low-cost cargo bicycles to offer convenient household recycling service in densely populated low-income neighborhoods. A fleet of specially outfitted cargo bicycles pedals through the dense neighborhoods to pick up the recycling on a regular schedule. Families are motivated to recycle plastic bottles, plastic sachets, and aluminum cans through its innovative SMS-based incentive programme.
For every kilogramme of material that families recycle, they receive redeemable Wecyclers points over their cell phones. These points are then redeemed for goods such as cell phone minutes, basic food items, and household goods. Families receive collection reminders and rewards updates directly on their mobile phones making the benefits of recycling immediate. The company aggregates the materials into different level of well-sorted, high quality recyclable material to processors alleviating their supply constraints.
Since its launch, the company has collected more than 200 tonnes of waste from more than 5,000 households.
As they’re recycling, they see the other benefits, from the cleanliness, the reduction of flooding, reduction in diseases.
Though the Wecyclers business employs about 30 people, the social enterprise plans to expand to more than a 100 and increase its reach across Lagos. She said her company is capable of creating 500,000 jobs for the economy. This is becaus it engages tailors that sow the bags, painters, carpenters, graphic designers and people that support at the hub. They are machinists, drivers and cleaners and so on.
Right now, WeCyclers is increasingly becoming a household name in waste collection and recycling.
The company has generated over $20,000 in revenue and now owns 15 wecycles in operation.
WeCyclers works closely with the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and aims to educate and equip people about the need for better waste management.
The company also won this year’s Sustainia Award. The award selected by the Sustainia Award Committee, was chaired by former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Mrs Saka’s story is an example of how the combination of entrepreneurship and green jobs could be one solution for many unemployed youth, while combating the challenges facing the environment. Thousands of plastic bags and bottles litter the streets. She is one entrepreneur who recognised the potential of plastic waste recycling.
While in school, Mrs Saka learned to reuse wastes in a productive way. She retrieves recyclable plastic materials from households, businesses, streets and dump yards. She then sort the materials, and use them to produce plastic products.
Right now, her company has been able to create packers and slippers out of unwanted plastics items that would otherwise be destined for landfill. The company converts the waste into durable, affordable, cost effective and environmental friendly plastic products. To help the business, she has set up a collection system of waste plastic.
For her, a constant supply of raw material to the factory is of utmost importance for the existence of the business.
So far, the project has created employment opportunities. She employs 20 individuals and creates other indirect jobs for waste collectors and garbage sorters.
As part of expansion plans, she has purchased machines for plastic products and they are planning to increase processing capacity, as well as introduce new products lines.
According to her, market development, which includes the design, manufacturing and marketing of plastics products, is required to close the recycling loop and stimulate the underwhelming recycling rate.
For this reason,she said the gap between potential and realised recycled materials represents a lucrative opportunity for innovative small and medium sized businesses.
Notwithstanding, Mrs Saka is happy that consumers are lending their support to stimulating the domestic recycled market. Promising signs have surfaced. For this reason, a host of small businesses have emerged to heed their call.
On the whole, she believes that recycling helps turn trash into cash and promotes a healthier economy, society and planet.
This is why disused car bumpers, old paint pot lids, dashboards and swathes of agricultural plastic wrappings are like gold dust to her company.
She is also determined to build a business built on driving the need to reuse plastic so that this would reduce the amount dumped in landfill sites.
One waste material, according to her that has potential is polyester fibre because of its several uses in many industries and also for its use as packaging material for beverages, food products, pharmaceuticals, consumer and industrial products.