ADDIS ABABA- Seeing that plastic bottles are littering every nook and cranny of the capital, Addis Ababa, Mesfin Ashenafi, who lived overseas for nearly two decades, established a firm that recycles the bottles into brooms.
Two years into the business, Mesfin now earns a living out of it and created jobs to around ten others. “The business has been benefiting several plastic bottle suppliers,” he says.
He also designed and manufactured machine which helps to processes the bottles to input for the production of the brooms.“I pay suppliers 0.5 Birr per plastic bottle.”
Speaking to The Ethiopian Herald, Mesfin described the business as having multiple benefits on the consumers’ side –such as durability and affordability of the brooms his firm produces.
“As we’re just penetrating the local market, our product does not go on a day to day basis. But around ten women involved in manufacturing the products. And if they work in full swing, they can make up to 100 brooms a day.”
But the problem he faces is that when he participates in bids to supply his brooms to government institutions, most disqualifies him owing to the unfamiliarity of the products.
Addis Ababa City Administration Environment Protection Authority Environmental Pollution Inspection Expert Tesfaw Abay said such smart intervention has layers of benefits.
To him, the number of industries that work on recycling plastic is increasing from time to time proving to true as ‘waste is wealth’.
The Ethiopian Herald January 10/2020
BY YESUF ENDRIS
