Mr Green Africa was part of the organisers of the World Environment Day celebration held at St John Catholic Church In Riruta. This event was held to mark June 5th World Environment Day. In attendance were Danish Refugee Council and Taka Bank as well as students from various schools.
Mr Green Africa is a recycling company with a base in Nairobi that collects plastic, refines them and modifies them to be recyclable. They produce the purest form of post-consumed plastic and that can be reused. They are in partnership with Unilever in the collection of bottles and purchase of recycled materials.
” Trading Recyclable materials while achieving tangible social and environmental impact, “ Mr Green’s goal as an institution.
Mr Green has created job opportunities for informal waste collectors by providing a space for them to receive reimbursement for collection. They are integrating waste collectors into their value chain by applying fair trade principles. The waste collectors have to meet their requirements before they are considered. A few requirements include; they must be 18 years and above, must be upright ( not break laws) and must respect human rights ( including non-use of abusive language).
These waste pickers are integrated, registered with the company as waste collectors, trained and undergo capacity building. Mr Green is looking to change the term associated with them from waste pickers or collectors to suppliers of plastics to the organization. This is a way to create a destigmatization environment around waste, its collection and its recycling.
Advantages of Mr Green Africa
The organization has many benefits to both the people and themselves. One of them is, it ensures that the environment is safe. No longer having an excess amount of plastic that causes harm to humans, animals and plants. They also create employment opportunities for people who don’t have a n ability to get employment. It reduces the number of people living on the streets since they’ll be rehabilitated and have a source of income for themselves. Moreover, it reduces the cost of manufacturing by reducing the time an organization would use to import the plastic and even the finances they would use to do so.
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They use an Erema machine that does the recycling process. There’s only one machine found in Kenya and it’s under Mr Green Africa. The machine turns the plastics into pellets of certain types. For example, jerricans are turned into HDPE pellets and help to categorise the pellets and reuse them properly.
The organization has a quality control team that ensures that any plastic that can’t be recycled is incinerated. This is a way to completely destroy plastics without damaging the environment. The team analyses whether the plastic can be reused, and then if they are in any way poisonous, they are taken for incineration.
” We label the plastics that have been recycled so that when they go into the market, people know what quality can come from recycled plastics. This way, they recognize the quality produced and reduce stigma for the waste collectors who make recycling possible,” Jackson Njoroge, a community, partnerships and government relations employee of Mr Green Africa said in an interview.
They have been carrying out internal and external awareness campaigns to teach people about waste management and recycling. Leveraging technology to manage operations in an emerging market and producing high-quality products for use.
Changing the perception of waste and destigmatising the waste pickers.
Read Also: 50th anniversary of the World Environment Day
