How local company mints millions by recycling waste

Did you know you can now earn from your waste? Well, in a new waste management model, you can make money on a daily basis from trash.

Havilla Smart Enviros, a local company in the waste management industry, is paying customers up to Sh22 per kilo. Their valuation is based on the quality of the waste or garbage. Plastics and polythene are a preference.

Going by the slogan ‘waste is value’, the company is looking to radically transform the country’s garbage disposal approach. The startup, a brainchild of Mr Samuel Maina, encourages people to start handling waste as a valuable product and to start segregating its different components at their homes.

Since 2014, when it started operating, Havilla Smart Environs has managed to buy and shred more than 3000 tons of waste, which they have then sold to other companies at a handsome profit.

In a year, they generate a gross income of up to Sh10 million. For their efforts they have been nominated for Ambassador of Environmental Pollution by the Kenya Recyclers Association.

At their premises in Ngong, clients and suppliers bring in waste, which is then weighed on a digital scale. Their digital scale is connected to a mobile app, which takes measurements in kilogrammes.

The information is then sent to the server that calculates how much money one is to be paid. The money is sent to suppliers directly through mobile money platforms. Those who do not have Mpesa or mobile money are paid in cash.

“The reason why we buy waste is because we want to teach people to start segregating from source,” said Mr Samuel in a recent interview.

“Whenever someone realises that waste is value, from their own house, whether this is plastics or metal, they start segregating at source.”

As any other enterprise though, their business faces challenges. The biggest is waste contamination which is the mixing of different types of waste materials that occurs when they are all disposed off in the same container.

“When recycling waste, it is so much contaminated. This starts from the households because that is where it is mixed up; that could be plastics put together with diapers or other waste that was not supposed to be mixed up,” said Mr. Maina

The other, he says, is perception.

“Once people know you are in the industry of waste management, there is that mentality that I don’t need to associate myself with that person, yet that waste has come from them.”

with the population of Kenya is at more than 47 million. and expected to hit 70 million in the next 20 years, it means innovative ways to recycle waste will be mandatory as dumping fields shrink and the need to conserve the environment become all the more important.

Building collection sites all over Nairobi where people will bring their waste and get paid for it become not only an important income-generating venture but it also contribute towards reducing threats to the environment.