Lorna Rutto resigned her comfortable banking job in 2009 to start EcoPost,
a small plastic recycling business. Her business uses plastic waste collected
from dumpsites and garbage cans across Nairobi to manufacture fencing
posts. These posts, which are used to fence houses and forest reserves, are
becoming a preferred alternative to timber.
According to smallstarter inspire me so far, her innovative business
has created over 7,000 fencing posts, 500 new jobs, generated more than $
150,000 in yearly revenues, saved over 250 acres of forests and removed
more than 1,000 tonnes of plastic waste from the environment. You should
read her inspiring story to find out how she accomplished this amazing feat!
Waste is a huge problem in many
African cities and urban centres. Lorna
noticed that Nairobi, the Kenyan
capital city, generates no less than
3,000 metric tonnes of waste every day
and about 20 percent of this is usually
plastic waste.
Due to a severely underdeveloped waste management culture in Africa, it is
a common practice for household, commercial and industrial waste to be
illegally dumped in open areas, drains and dumpsites, causing serious harm
to humans and the environment.
On the other hand, Lorna saw that Kenya’s forest reserves were fast
depleting. The growing demand for timber used in building and construction
was putting a lot of pressure on the country’s forests. Intensive logging over
the years has reduced the country’s forest areas to less than 2 percent of the
entire land mass, and many tree species are now on the endangered species
list. If nothing was done quickly, Kenya would suffer irreparable
environmental damage. If only there was a way to provide a close substitute
to timber, a bad situation could be saved from getting worse.
In the midst of all these problems, Lorna noticed that demand and price for
timber posts was rising due to short supply. Up to 200,000 timber posts were
sold in and around Nairobi every month. If only she could produce an
alternative to timber that was nearly as strong, longer lasting, cheaper and
environmentally sustainable, she could profit from the lucrative timber
market while helping to save Kenya’s endangered forests.
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