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| Image Credit: businesslive.co.za |
In Nigeria, a country heavily
reliant on revenues from its oil exports, entrepreneur Ifedolapo Runsewe has
identified another type of black gold: used car tyres.
She has set up Freetown Waste
Management Recycle, an industrial plant dedicated to transforming old tyres
into paving bricks, floor tiles and other goods that are in high demand in
Africa's most populous nation.
"Creating something new
from something that will otherwise be lying somewhere as waste was part of the
motivation," Runsewe told Reuters at her factory in the city of Ibadan in
southwest Nigeria.
"We are able to create
an entire value chain around the tyres," she said, holding a paving brick
that is one of the company's best-selling products.
Waste management in Nigeria
is patchy at best. In villages, towns and cities, piles of waste are a common
sight, and residents often burn them at night for lack of a safer method of
disposal. Tyres are routinely dumped and abandoned.
Freetown relies on scavengers
who collect old tyres from dumping grounds. They are paid 70 to 100 naira
($0.17-$0.24) per tyre.
Some tyres are also supplied
directly by mechanics, like Akeem Rasaq, who is delighted to have found a place
where he can make some money from old tyres.
"Most of the tyres end
up in public drainage clogging up the drain, but things have changed," he
said at his roadside workshop.
Freetown started operations
in 2020 with just four employees, and growth has been so rapid the workforce
has jumped to 128. So far, more than 100,000 tyres have been recycled into
everything from speed bumps to soft paving for playgrounds.
"It is important to
support anybody that recycles in our country," said Houssam Azem, founder
of the Lagos Jet Ski Riders Club, which has purchased paving bricks from
Freetown for a children's play area.
"Taking tyres, which is
an environmental nuisance, and turning them into what children can play on, I
think it is a win-win for everybody."
Source:
weforum.org
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