Climate change has called on us to rethink how we dispose of waste which has created business opportunities. Young people have been at the fore of developing innovative and creative solutions to climate change while simultaneously growing the green economy.
Protea Glen based Got Paper, hosted a waste management dialogue at the Soweto Theatre last Saturday. The dialogue saw innovators within the green sector come together to share their stories of success, but most importantly, their stories of failure as future entrepreneurs could learn from them.
Keynote speaker and CEO of TOSACA Media and the Green Youth Network, Sanele Zulu, shared his entrepreneurial journey in which he revealed that he had seven businesses fail before he found a green business model that worked.
“I was working at Shoe City and I remember we were throwing boxes away everyday so I decided to collect the boxes and sell them,” said Zulu as he recalled the struggles he endured on his journey into the green economy.
Zulu later expanded his business to include other shops in the mall he worked in. He was disappointed when all his hard work culminated in R140 worth of boxes, plastic and glass bottles. The dialogue also provided a space in which green entrepreneurs could network and learn from each other.
“Before I started my business, I attended a waste management forum which was in Sandton and I realised that not everyone can get to Sandton and this is an industry anybody can get in to. I decided to bring the conversation to the township where we always complain about unemployment and a lack of opportunities,” explained Nombulelo Rammitloa, founder of Got Paper.
In attendance were other young green entrepreneurs who have grown their businesses in a short space of time such as Moipone Ntseke, founder of Star Born Bags which takes old billboards and turns them into bags. Ntseke encouraged her fellow entrepreneurs to remain humble even once their businesses start taking off.
Access to sanitary towels in poor communities is appallingly low, Palesa Pads, a company that manufactures fabric reusable pads also attended the dialogue. Palesa Pads aims to reduce the number of girls who do not have access to sanitary towels by providing them at a cost-effective price according to Omphemetse Plaatjies, business development director at Palesa Pads.
The waste management dialogue was the first of many according to Rammitloa who feels such gatherings are important for green entrepreneurs as it provides opportunities to network.
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