By Albert Mwazighe (Daily Nation)
After pushing sales at a digital marketing agency for several years, Mugo Gitau began to notice a few things in 2018 that left him feeling conflicted about the workthat he was doing.Even though the waste situation in the country’s urban are as kept worsening by the day, the agency pushed for more sales, with seemingly no concern over how the post-consumer waste would be managed.
“I understood the power that brands have to change conversations and shape the world, but we were just pushing people to buy without asking where this stuff would go,” said Gitau in an interview with Powering SMEs.
This did not sit well with the marketer, therefore, in 2019, Mugo partnered with a friend who had a background in engineering to start an enterprise that would convert plastic waste into fencing poles. In addition to reducing the amount of plastic waste in the country, this enterprise would also advance environmental conservation efforts by preventing the logging of trees for purposes of producing fencing poles.
“Plastic offered numerous advantages. Plastic poles are very strong, they are termite proof, they are not affected by water, therefore they do not rot, and they cannot be used as firewood,” said Gitau.
Leveraging their personal savings, money from people close to them and a bank loan, the duo bought some machines in Kariobangi Light Industries, secured manufacturing space and then registered their company, Noma Green Plastics. “Our raw materials consisted of post-consumer and post-industrial plastic waste. Sometimes this waste was mixed up and it was quite difficult to sort, then find the perfect ratio for our poles to withstand the normal pressures in construction and fencing,” said Gitau.
“There is a project we did in Wasini for the Kwale County government, where we built a platform for mangrove viewing using plastics alone,” Mugo Gitau.
Just as they were beginning to make progress in product development, the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, resulting in a shortage of money and slowing down of their research work. “By then, I had already quit my job, so it was a very difficult time for us. The money was beginning to dry up but fortunately, in November 2020, we were able to hit on the right ratios and temperatures,” said Gitau.
Finally with a product that met industry standards, the entrepreneurs applied for the requisite certification then began looking for customers. In December 2020, they managed to sell their first batch of 20 poles. “We later increased our production to about 50 poles in a week, then 100 poles by mid of 2021, and by the end of the year, we were doing 300 poles in a week,” stated Gitau. Again, just when the business was beginning to gain traction in 2021, the entrepreneurs were kicked out of the site where they were conducting their operations, this being a residential area.
“It was a small space, an eighth of an acre, so we had neighbours close by complaining about the noise. We would have wanted to get a more suitable location, but this is what we could afford at the time,” explained Gitau. Since the money they had raised at the time was only enough to secure a site far frommthe city where rent was cheaper, the entrepreneurs relocated to a site in Thogoto, several kilometres from Kikuyu town.
“Whenever we would take customers to this site, they would question our intentions. I remember one woman saying she couldn’t go any further because she had to pick her kid from school. She went and never came back.” To resolve this problem, Mugo opened a retail outlet near town, where customers could easily access the company’s products. The firm also began using social media to reach out to more customers.
From two employees, Noma Green Plastics expanded its workforce to six staff, and to position the company for further growth, Mugo signed up for training at the Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC).
“When starting, you think you know what it takes to run a business. When you get into it, you discover you actually don’t know. KCIC taught us a lot about running a business, from book keeping, to human resourcing, branding and approaching investors,” said Gitau. This training enabled them to expand their production capacity to about 120 poles in a day, recycling about 30 to 40 tonnes of plastic waste in a month. They also expanded their workforce from six to 12 staff.
From selling their products to individual customers such as farmers and land owners, the company began targeting institutions such as churches, schools, land selling companies, county and national governments as well. “There is a project we did in Wasini for the Kwale County government, where we built a platform for mangrove viewing using plastics alone,” said Gitau.
Noma Green Plastics also began manufacturing other products, including furniture and road sig
n poles using plastic, material that could not be vandalised for scrap metal purposes like metal poles. “Plastic is such a versatile material that can create many products. We plan to venture into producing plastic paving blocks, slabs and other construction materials using machinery we acquired with the support of KCIC,” said Gitau.
Since inception, Noma Green Plastics has managed to recycle more than 10,000 tonnes of plastic waste, in the process saving about 4,000 trees from logging, according to Mugo. The firm wishes to increase the amount of plastic waste they process and sell; however, a number of issues, such as poor government policies, are preventing them from achieving their objectives.
“There was a time when the machines that we use to process plastic waste were exempt from certain taxes, but these were brought back with the current regime, making the machines more expensive,” noted Gitau. And due to the high cost of manufacturing, most of their resources are used in day to day factory operations, therefore, the company also struggles with lack of adequate resources for marketing and distribution.
