How do you build a circular economy for plastic that includes the informal sector?

In this episode, Keiran Smith from Mr. Green Africa explains their approach to plastic recycling, which is built on integrating the informal waste collection sector into a formal business. Keiran details their model: a decentralized system of buy-back centers that use a proprietary app for transparent payments, a processing facility that turns collected plastic into pellets, and direct partnerships with corporations who use the recycled material in their packaging.

You’ll hear how Mr. Green Africa navigates the challenges of a fragmented supply chain, competes with the cost of virgin plastic, and plans to expand its operations from Kenya into other markets in East Africa.

Video Impression

People

Keiran Smith , Co-founder at Mr. Green Africa
https://www.linkedin.com/in/keiran-smith/

Patrick Hypscher, Circular Business Strategist, PaaS Expert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hypscher/

Chapters

00:00 Intro
01:34 Founding Mr. Green Africa
03:04 Principles of Mr. Green Africa
04:36 Kenyan Informal Waste Sector – Changes in the Last 11 Years
07:01 Changes in the Recycling Landscape
09:32 Mr. Green Africa’s Business Model
14:20 Fair Trade and Waste Entrepreneurs
17:38 Collection and Supply Channels
22:58 Waste Collection Barriers
26:22 Product Applications and Market
29:01 Global Recycling Challenges
33:06 Future Plans and Partnerships
35:12 Who Should Reach Out to Mr. Green Africa?

About

Mr Green Africa integrates informal waste collectors via fair-trade principles, buying plastics and converting them into traceable, high-quality recyclates (PCR) for local and international markets.

The company operates service stations (e.g., with TOTAL) where citizens can drop plastics and earn Green Points, and it is noted as the first recycling company in Africa certified as a B-Corp. Its model combines technology for operations with social impact metrics and corporate partnerships to expand collection and processing.

Third-party project write-ups highlight aggregation and transformation of collected plastic into feedstock for new products.

Further Links

https://www.mrgreenafrica.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mr-green-trading-africa-kenya-ltd/
https://www.instagram.com/mrgreen_africa/

Transcript

[00:00:00] Intro

Keiran: We were five years ago, I think is a big pioneer and we take a lot of pride in this partnership with Unilever, where we launched Kenya’s first packaging made out of a hundred percent recycled material, a hundred percent locally collected, a hundred percent locally manufactured into a recycled, and then back into the packaging for the local market.

Patrick Hypscher: My name is Patrick Hypscher and this is Circularity.fm, the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models.

Welcome back to  Circularity.fm and our series on Circular Entrepreneurship in Kenya. In this episode, we hear from Keiran Smith, co-founder and CEO of Mr. Green Africa, Kenya’s first B Corp certified plastic recycler.

Keiran shares how they build a fair trade recycling system working with thousands of informal waste entrepreneurs, the challenges of operating in a largely informal market and why win-win partnerships are essential to the sustainability of the business model.

But before we start, I have an offer for you. If you want to get the actionable one pager about this conversation, please sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter. You can find it at www . Circularity.fm.

[00:01:34] Founding Mr. Green Africa

Patrick Hypscher: Welcome  Keiran to this episode, founder and CEO of Mr. Green Africa.  Keiran, who are you and what is Mr. Green Africa?

Keiran: Good, good to be here, Patrick. Thanks for having, us or me with you today. Well, who I am, I’m, I’m Mr. Green, co-founder. I’m Keiran. And, I’m based in Nairobi, and originally I’m from Switzerland. And w when we started Mr. Green, or I moved to Kenya almost now 11 years ago to start Mr. Green Africa. I don’t know, do you want me already to go into the, the details of what Mr. Green Africa does and, and why we started? Yeah. Good, well, so, you know, we take a lot of pride in, in, when we started. Now, today, we take a lot of pride in when we started this because at the time when we started and come up with the idea, my co-founder and I, there was not a big discussion around circular economy.

There was not a big discussion around plastic pollution and how much of an issue it is for the environment, right? And also, if we go into more niche when we, there was not a lot of discussion of an informal waste collection sector, right? So when we started Mr. Green Africa, and when I had the privilege to travel to Kenya and, and, and see the opportunities, we built Mr.

Green Africa on two principles.

[00:03:04] Principles of Mr. Green Africa

Keiran: So the first principle being that we want to create a win-win situation for the informal waste collection sector, and buy in a fair, transparent, inclusive way, the plastic waste back as a resource, as a commodity. And, you will, we, we said we can copy what you see in fair trade value chains, in the agricultural value chains, with tea, with coffee and smallholder farmers. We can apply that into the waste value chain or the plastic waste value chain where our smallholder farmers are waste entrepreneurs, who harvest every day. Yeah, that’s principle number one. And then the principle number two was very much focused and geared towards local validation. Again, with many commodities that we have still today, the commodity doesn’t have the highest possible validation within the country of origin, right? And for us, from day one, it was very clear and important that if we truly want to share value across the value chain, we need to have highest possible validation. In country of origin, where we operate. And, and hence the principle number two is local validation, producing, plastic waste from the feedstock into the highest possible value.

in our case now, a pellet format. So that’s how we started, and, and why we started Mr. Green Africa. Of course, you know, 11 years ago I was a bit younger and a bit more naive and, but it was one of the best decisions I made in my life to do that.

[00:04:36] Kenyan Informal Waste Sector – Changes in the Last 11 Years

Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful. Let’s, let’s stick to these 11 years. Can you take us a bit back and, give us an impression of the, let’s say, state of plastics in Kenya back then? Mm-hmm.

Keiran: Yeah. So, think a lot of has has changed over these 11 years, right? We, if you, if when we went to visit and what, what I’ve seen is that there’s a, a huge informal sector, engaged in collecting, you know, I mean, we, we have to imagine the streets of Kenya, that there’s littering happening, there’s, there’s this little dumping happening, et cetera.

So it. Plastic waste and waste in general is an eyesore. and, and, and, but there are people who have been, turning this into an opportunity, where they collect and, and take out valuable waste streams and sell them into an informal system. so that has already been there. But what has not been there is, an organized way of how is being done in, in a more formal way. Right. not to say that this informal system is not organized, they’re extremely organized, but not formalized. Right, which makes it difficult to actually sell. into more formal supply chains where the value sits. Yeah. and so they depend on middleman in between, to get the, the value or the lower value.

And it’s exploitive, it’s not transparency. It’s very fragmented. Yeah. So that was state of, of art in, in, or state of this situation in Kenya and still a little bit today as Mr. Green Africa, obviously we’re working in pioneering work to change that. But it’s a big endeavor and it takes time.

Then on the, on the, if we look at the validation side, at that time, there was no sophisticated recycling company, focusing on plastic waste in particular. so there were some, companies who would produce end products, bins, buckets, et cetera, who would interact with this informal system and buy recycled, material in a certain way. And they would process it and they would go into direct and, and, and, and applications.

But those are more lower quality or lower end applications, little to, non consumer applications, et cetera, right. and so where we saw the void. and then maybe, from a regulatory perspective, also there was no regulation around the importance for recycling or incentives for recycling, et cetera. So those, those were all things that were not, existent, 11 years ago.

[00:07:01] Changes in the Recycling Landscape

Keiran: If we fast forward today, regulatory, I think Kenya was one of the, the, the pioneers in, in changing legacy, legislation around plastic bags, right? batting them, I think in 2017. So, which wake woke up the industry, the, especially the plastic industry.

Oh. Government, government is serious about this topic, and we need to do something right. So that has massively shifted, of course, again, much more room for improvement, much more room for progress. But I think that has, is a big change in the perception of we need to do something about it rather than just, this is what it is, yeah.

Also from a recycling capacity perspective, especially in plastics, not only us as Mr. Green Africa have started, adding capacities and in sophistication level. there’s other companies, great companies who are, who are there, right? T three, Taka Taka solutions. They, they’re there and they’re doing their efforts and their piece and they contributing.

And then there, of course there are a couple of Chinese manufacturers who are more sophisticated, in recycling. So the landscape of capacity and players in the space has drastically, and significantly improved, right? And also on the, on I’m, I’m happy to say on the formal system, in the informal system side, there’s a lot of movements. we’re,

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah.

Keiran: We, we like to call ourselves the pioneer, and we like to take pride and credit for seeing other companies doing similar things as we do, in the market. You know, we’ve always said from day one, we want to empower this, this, this informal market, this and make it more transparent, make it more fair.

And we’ve seen now competitors doing the same thing trying to engage these cohorts, which has not happened before, right? And so that change is happening as well with the focus. And if we even talk about the global scale, what people are now calling it. The just transition, where waste entrepreneurs, we like to call them waste entrepreneurs, but the, the more common term is a waste picker, right? Or informal waste collector. and, there, there is an, an advocacy level, for various different organizations. So say there’s needs to be a just transition when we talk about plastic, circularity, et cetera. This informal system market needs to be part of the solution.

They should not be disrupted with the policies that we make, right? And that has also quite evidently changed also in the conversations with government and policy makers in Kenya. So that’s, what I would say in a nutshell, has really drastically changed and it’s super exciting. when we look back over those 11 years when we started and where we are today, and the opportunities that are ahead.

[00:09:32] Mr. Green Africa’s Business Model

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, and especially the change you also brought to the market. Yeah. And the inspiration. if we look at, the operations of Mr. Green, Africa as of today, can you walk us a bit? Through, what you’re doing, starting from, let’s say collection, to providing the, the, the pallets.

Keiran: Well, so there’s three key parts to our business model. As I mentioned, the two principles, which are still at the core of the business, but there’s three key parts of what we’re doing as, as, as a business. So the first, part, which is the, a very unique part, you don’t see in many places is how we, created a decentralized collection aggregation system that integrates this informal sector into our supply chain, right?

We’re buying, we, we are registering each and every supplier into our, into our business. We have buyback centers that buy directly, buy from informal collectors, waste entrepreneurs. We register them, we transact with them real time on, an, proprietary app that we have built for ourselves. So we have full traceability and transparency on. Who’s bringing how much plastic into which location, which type of material and how much did they get paid, right? So, so that’s one key element that we do though, and we have our reach across Kenya, yeah.

The second piece is now where we, today we’re in the fourth generation of factory and capacity and recycling capacity, set up right. We started very small with a, with a very small shredder where we just grind down the plastic and sell it back into industries where we now, today we have, a five x capacity to compare to last year where we moved from 4,000 tons capacity, mainly focused on polyethylenes HT P and ppp, to now a 20,000 ton annual capacity, focusing on, HTP and PPP still, and PT food grade, right.

So this first generation is now, we like to say our flagship factory, that integrates this informal system. With a, a, a European standard of, recycling capacity that allows us to produce high quality product at scale, right. And then the third thing, that we have been able to, build, build, over time, which, which came along as of the nature of our business, is integrating the, the supply chain on our, our value proposition with corporate partnerships and brand owners. we found ourselves that in the niche, and in order to, you know to be really sustainable and, and and transparent and offer a real value proposition for our suppliers, it’s all about stability in price. It’s all about stability in market foresight, right? if we try to participate with this setup in the high volatile market spot trade markets on the global scale, it’s much harder to do business.

Yeah. and where we found ourselves to create a true win-win, which is the third key piece that we’ve now. Between for the last five years is working with brand owners who make promises, to their, stakeholders using recycled material in their packaging, right. and we were five years ago, again, I think is a, a, a big pioneer and we take a lot of pride in this partnership with Unilever.

Where we launched Kenya’s first packaging made out of a hundred percent recycled material, a hundred percent locally collected, a hundred percent locally manufactured into a recycled, and then back into the packaging for the local market, right? So a truly localized, a closed loop plastics economy, if you will, right.

 And, and we’ve been doing that ever since. And we’ve been expanding into other brand owners, we’re working with Shell, with Total, and we have a couple of other exciting partnerships in the pipeline, right. So, and so that, and why do I say that is piece of our, our business. And the third key piece is because that is where the success lies, where we create true value, for such customers, right? ‘Cause that brand owners are the ideal customer profile to us, ’cause they value transparency, they value traceability, they value the effort of trying to impact the community that supplies into the supply chain. And of course, they value that we can be competitive, and benchmark with European qualities, benchmark with European quantities, and of course also competitive in price. So, I think that’s where we create a true win-win, with, with, with each other. And so these are the three key pieces of what we do in the core.

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah, yeah, I was, when I was visiting, your facilities, I immediately saw this. How do you call it? Like this picture or this document where you, and back then the CEO of Unilever, Paul Pullman, kind of signed the partnership of bringing exactly that to

Keiran: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. yes.

[00:14:20] Fair Trade and Waste Entrepreneurs

Patrick Hypscher: And, you mentioned, the fair trade principles and also the waste entrepreneurs, how you engage with them. what are you doing there? How, how does it look like in practice?

Keiran: Yeah. So, I think the core is, in, in practice is we enable a market. We enable, a a a steady market. A reliable market, a predictable market, right? And so, so that, that is the core because, you know, a again, you know, when we, when we came to Kenya and we, when we did our research around this market and who engages with this market, many NGOs already do it, right?

There’s many initiatives that do it, et cetera. but the core failure that we see that have been there from such institutions is they haven’t been able to provide a, a consistent, reliable, transparent market. Yeah. They’ve been trying to give tools to the cohort to engage with the market. But if there is no consistent reliable market, no matter what the tools are that you give, they won’t last and they won’t be effective.

And so for us, that was the number one thing, provide a reliable market. And then now on top of that, what we’re trying to build is trust is a relationship, is something that is going beyond just a transaction, right. And in order for, for us to be, doing this successfully, we need to be, the reach needs to be closer to the market, to the, to the sector.

So, being decentralized, being in these different communities, being active there, and now trying to think about how can we help solve the day-to-day challenges that they face to be productive, to do their job well, et cetera. Right. and you know, to be honest, there’s a ton of work in progress. After 11 years, you know, I think we’ve done some great progress, but, we cannot claim that we have changed that informal market, the way they do, their work. They’re still exposed to hazardous environment. They’re still exposed to harassment by government officials. They still have exposure and challenges that they face to day, day to day.

So. It’s a structural and systemic challenge, which we try to still define our space of like, what is our mandate? How far can we take our mandate to help and support this sector? Right? On top of, providing a reliable, transparent market. Right? and you know, what is viable, right? What is sustainable, right?

‘Cause again, you know, we are, we are doing it for profit, we are doing it here as a business. That is the, that is the sustainability and the market environment. So, are balances, a very thin line of, of, of finding the right balance. And I would argue that we’re still figuring out, but the core is exactly what I just said.

Stable market and then trying to go above and beyond of how we can support and make the productivity of the individual, better. and ultimately the livelihood better, right? More income or productivity, is it better equals better livelihood. So, so that’s what we’re trying to do there.

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. And to add on that, you’re a certified B Corp. so, what you

just said African recycler with a B-Corp of certification. We take also a lot of pride in that.

[00:17:38] Collection and Supply Channels

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Yeah. for a good reason. and, and let’s stick one, one more question, to the, let’s say supply side. so, I saw the collection, stations at total. I saw the, one of the pickup locations at Kibera.

I also, I visited, Dandora Dam site where if I understood correctly, you’re also collecting, yeah, feedstock. so you mentioned your capacity is about to increase to 10 K tons per

Keiran: 20.

Patrick Hypscher: 20. so can you give us like a rough idea where most of your, what’s the share of, of the different, input streams, not specific numbers, but to get, to get an idea?

Keiran: Of course. Yeah. So, you know, if we also just take a view back on strategically the alignment of Mr. Green Africa, how we collect, right? So we have categories of collection channels, the informal channel and the formal channel, right? So what you’ve seen on the petrol station in Total is part of the formal channel.

And then what you’ve seen in Kibera and, and feedstock from, from the, the dump sites or the, the smaller dump sites and, and the, the reach of the different collection systems that we have across the country is the formal, the informal channel, right? And so today, 95% is coming from from the informal channel, 5% from the formal channel. Let me speak a little bit to the, to the informal channel. So in the informal channel we have, various different, supplier categories as well. So we, again, we made it a point, if you think about it, just focusing on waste entrepreneurs, the individual waste entrepreneurs, the ones who are the most exploited in the system, right?

Focusing only them and trying to cut out all the middlemen in between is not the solution for us, yeah. We want to enable the entirety of the system to just, act more responsibly, act more transparently and get the benefit from it, right? Which means, a small as well as an informal small, informal waste picker, can get value from trading with Mr. Green Africa. A medium to a bigger supplier who’s an aggregator, who has their own cohorts of, of, of, of pickers, and entrepreneurs, do the same, right? it’s on the basis of rules of engagement on how we engage with them, right?

Patrick Hypscher: Yep.

Keiran: So, so, so that’s, 95% of our feedstock. And if we break it down further today, I would say even majority is coming from the, the medium to, to larger suppliers. And the, the minority, 20 to 30% is coming really from the in individual, small, suppliers, right. But because we’re working with the medium and the big, we have an indirect impact also on their small suppliers, right. So we can, if we were to count them as part of our ecosystem and supply system, we would talk about tens of thousands of people that are benefiting from trading with Mr. Green Africa, right.

So, so, so that’s on the, on the informal side. And then on the, on the formal side, we started making an effort to try to tap into a bigger cake of the size of the pie because if we still look at numbers today, you know, most of the plastic waste that is being generated in emerging markets in Kenya as well is maybe five to 10% is being recycled, which is captured by this informal system.

So there’s still a, and if we can be generous, even, let’s assume 30% that they capture, ‘ cause there’s a dark number there, right? There’s still a big chunk that is not being captured. And in our, in our, formal system is what we’re trying to do is capturing into this untapped system, where, you know, consumers are burning waste, and with it plastic waste, right? I think is our biggest competition, are not other recyclers are pulling for the same material, it’s actually people burning waste. And, and the value is lost. So we’re trying to create a value proposition, and this is something unique we did is three years ago where we started integrating with consumers and enable consumers to come and drop off plastics and earn something from it, right. That is a unique value proposition that we haven’t seen in many places yet, unless in Europe with the deposit scheme that is heavily subsidized, right?

And, and how we did it is we have done it under the value of the plastic, right. And so we are trying to incentivize the consumer system in different, through different channels, petrol station schools, mom and pop stores, community gated communities and things like that where consumers can bring back plastics, have a solution of how to do recycling and in some, in even get value for it.

Yeah, that’s How we see, how we gonna, collect. And I think when we fast forward into the future for 20 kt, our ideal mix would be 60% coming from a very transparent, traceable, informal system and 40% from this formal system.

[00:22:58] Waste Collection Barriers

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. And if we stick to that one, let’s say the untapped potential, and you mentioned earlier, you’re active, across the whole country. as far as I know, it’s still like, of course focused, to the metropolitan areas. when I traveled Kenya, I saw many villages where like plastics and even plastics I guess you would, would wish to recycle.

it’s just lying around. Yeah. Behind the houses, in the field, in the forest. and I was wondering. I mean, does it only only, come down to logistics and logistic effort to kind of connect the distant upcountry, destinations to these kind of, systems you’re, you’re building? Because I mean, the rest seems to be there and for me, I was just assuming it’s, let’s say logistical effort and the cost associated with bringing these plastics to one of your collection hubs, or what’s, what’s the barrier

Keiran: Is a big part of it. Absolutely. But I think we’re getting more closer and closer. The more dense you operate, the easier it becomes with, with logistics. Right? So there, there’s, there, there are breakthrough milestones to, to, to unlock also the more remote villages, et cetera. Of course, the further you go from your hub, the more expensive the kilo it is to bring it into, into your factory, right? So logistics will always be a key piece, but I think there’s a lot of logistical knowledge out there. The more we can leverage that and tap into that knowledge, the better we can do it. the other part that, that is a prevention here is, you know, not only, A channel where people can engage with and earn the value, where that starts. There’s also awareness and there’s perception. You know, I mean, I honestly, when we started the cons consumer ecosystem with the, the, the formal channel, I thought people would stand in line to bring in plastics.

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Yeah.

Keiran: You know? Not yet, at least, you know, that’s what we measure success as being like when people start standing in line to drop off plastics to get value, right. But, so there’s also an inherent perception element, right? This could come from no, not being aware that there’s the value. So not many people know about Mr. Green Africa today, that yet they can get, some, some pocket money for bringing back plastics, right? So the awareness of that, the availability of the solutions that are there, and then they reach, you know, as well. and, and then of course also this subtle, societal element, you know, we’ve seen it’s a very stigmatized, you know, collecting waste and carrying waste is a stigmatized thing, right? So,

Patrick Hypscher: Mm-hmm.

Keiran: As I said, you know, waste entrepreneurs are really, when we call on the, on the food chain, the bottom of the bottom of the food chain, right? And when you cut income and, and, and kind of like societal position, right? And so even if it’s a house help, who would, who would do a, a job and who could make that extra income?

They might not want to be seen with plastic waste because they perceived as a waste, picker, right? And so stigmatized. I see also their, barriers and challenges that one needs to break through, to change that perception, right? right? Mm-hmm.

[00:26:22] Product Applications and Market

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Gotcha. And if we now look, at your end result, you already mentioned, one of the three pillars is the corporation with big brands. So what are the kind of products, that are made out of your recycled material?

Keiran: You know, I think we’re even scratching the surface on, on what all the possible applications we can go in. so far we’ve been all, we obviously our feedstock is post-consumer packaging, right. and and. The applications that we’ve gone into is different. So plastic types. So we’ve gone into blow molding applications. So, packaging, you know, for detergents, household, household cleaners, multipurpose cleaners and things like that, we have not done on the, on the polyline side, HTP and PPP side, we haven’t done any food grade. ‘Cause even the European standard is still yet to be defined. What does food grade really look like?

So, so we’re focusing on, you know, applications that are, you know, back into consumer applications, bin buckets, from a PPP perspective and, and, and, a packaging that is nonfood. from a from an HTP perspective. and then now since this new capacity and capability that we brought online on the PT front, we are now trying to break through the barrier of food application as well.

So back into the Coca-Cola bottle, Pepsi bottle, soda bottles, water bottles, et cetera, and other, other food applications for PT. Because, we are, we’re, we’ve now, brought in a food grade capability into the Kenyan market, which is also, again, a pioneering move that we do that has not existed before. And then of course, you know, other, non-food applications on the PT side as well, you know, all like a, a, a dish washing liquid soap that is made in PET package. So, so those are typical applications. So mostly consumer packaging again, there is a, a big chunk of it that cannot maybe not meet the quality, et cetera, that can go to construction, which is piping. So we have really good product market fit for the piping industry, which they really appreciate, which we created value for because before they were using Virgin, now they can use high quality plastic as the Europeans are doing today. And so, so that’s where we at, I I think it can be expanded. I see a big opportunity in the automotive industry, so getting more into specialty plastics, that also value that allows us to redistribute even more value within the system and make it more viable. So, yeah, so that’s where I can see it’s going and heading.

[00:29:01] Global Recycling Challenges

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. And if we take that to a global scale, so currently as of 2025, when we look at Europe or Germany, plastic recyclers are facing huge challenges when it comes to demand pricing capacity. So, I feel like every week, every month, some facilities are closed down, so, so how is it for you, I mean, also acknowledging that, of course in Kenya, let’s say labor costs, are relatively cheaper. But it’s just one, one part of the cost structure. So, so are you, I mean, you’re never happy, I know, and it’s not about talking prices right now, but how does, the situation look like for you, for Kenya, or maybe even supplying into other, maybe even European markets.

Keiran: You know, from day one it was clear for us, we cannot charge premium. to Virgin for our rest of it. So for all these years, we’ve always been selling at a slight discount or at par of the Virgin price, in Kenya to Kenyan customers. And also our focus because of our scale, was predominantly domestic, regional customers.

So rarely did we have export markets, every now and then, the container here and there, but not, nothing significant. Now with this new capacity coming online, we are, we’re looking at that more and more. And, but, you know, coming back to your questions is the, the, the, the key uniqueness that we have been able to break through is that we are at par or below Virgin, right? Which creates a real product market fit and no dependency on regulation or, or a commitment from a brand owner that can, can revise and work, work backwards, et cetera. it almost becomes a no-brainer, no-brainer, especially for the corporate partners, because we can enable them to achieve their goals, at the same cost or even cheaper, right? So, that’s, that’s what helped us. Now, of course it’s worrisome if you look at what is happening on the global scale, and it puts pressure on the business. And the way we have mitigated our risk is we’ve worked backwards. We’ve looked at, okay, all the product, that the, the products that we’re selling to customer base and, and where we at.

The price points that we can get, the, the, the margins that we can make from this let’s work backwards and make the system work within, right? In some instances, like for example, PPP, we had to do price reductions on the PPP for our suppliers, right? So the, the, we have to work in between. So that’s, that’s, that’s how we try to manage and just try to hunker down and, and, and, and push through scale up. And, and get to that stab stability and, and, and hold out, hold the fort until hopefully regulation starts kicking in. And, and the, the, the, the, the market can recover. And, and we’re going into much better times from a recycling, sector perspective. So that’s how we’re trying to navigate and ma maneuver.

And that’s as said, like the key piece. What we’ve seen in, in terms of success is our ideal customer profiles. More and more working with brand owners where we have a true win-win, we enable them to achieve their targets, their goals by, using our, high quality recycled, recycled material in their packaging domestically, right?

And, and, and working that market and working together with such corporate partners is, is where the, the, the, the success lies and the stability lies until the, the, the, the overall industry is has tacked along, right? Because if we, if we’re honest, the brand owners, they are the pioneering companies trying to stick to their goals.

Of course societal pressure, and they know what’s coming in regulation, so they, they’re, they’re, they’re there, but, other players are not yet there, right? So, so the top brand owners, the global multinationals, they are taking a pioneer role in trying to make it work, with the means they have while shows trying to keep the competitive edge, right?

So, and that’s where we, we, we see ourselves for the time being to really play in in.

Patrick Hypscher: Yeah. Okay.

[00:33:06] Future Plans and Partnerships

Patrick Hypscher: So now let’s look ahead. so where do you want to be in three years from now?

Keiran: Well, three years from now, I think we’re going to definitely, further strengthen obviously the core here in Kenya. And, we probably will have, reach, increased our reach, in, Eastern African reach, right? As I mentioned, we’re only in Kenya today. I could see for, foresee ourselves to be also in Uganda and Tanzania and sort of an Eastern African, player, right?

More scale. So moving maybe from 20,000 tons to an additional capacity, 30, 40,000 tons annual capacity, somewhere there. so that’s really the strategy and we will start playing around with, having a, a really solid strategy on how, we can replicate what we’ve built here, here, into regions and into other markets, right?

Be through partnerships, be through joint ventures, be through acquisitions, right? So we really will gear up ourselves of like, how do we really, replicate this system? Right? As I mentioned earlier today in the call, we have the combination of a decentralized collection system that is super transparent and integrated and a state-of-the-art facility as we have it is a European, standard, if you will. The combination of the two is where the magic happens, right? And we believe this combination can be replicated into other, emerging market region. You know, let’s look at West Africa, south from Africa, India, Southeast Asia, Latin America. I think many markets, of course, they have all their different pace and and stages.

but I think in the core, this is where we could fit in. And so in three years from now, we will have a super solid strategy on how we can all and, and partner with companies and, and, and initiatives in these markets who have already done a great deal. In this space, that we can consolidate and structure a little bit to have a, a one stop shop, if you will, for corporate partners, who appreciate to, you know, engage with one party to achieve their goals across multiple regions.

Right? So, so that’s how we’re thinking about and, and where we wanna be in three years.

[00:35:12] Who Should Reach Out to Mr. Green Africa?

Patrick Hypscher: Wonderful Keiran. My last question is exactly about partners. What kind of partners on the international level, should reach out to you?

Keiran: Well, we would love to as always, interact with, more, mission aligned, brand owners. big and small brand owners who want to make the switch and, and use more recycled, material in their packaging. So please, reach out to us because, you know, you don’t only get quality and quantity, you also go get traceability and the impact, the social impact behind, the material that you get from Mr. Green Africa. And so this mission aligned thinking would love to work with more partners, on that front.

Patrick Hypscher: Brands in Kenya or also beyond?

Keiran: I see it really, Kenya, East Africa and beyond. So even if there’s a European customer who, who wants to source a recycled content with a story, we’re there we can support. And then of course, you know, in general, recyclers who have capacity, we still haven’t learned, we still are in the learning phase. So if there’s any recycler out there, we would love to, to collaborate and share knowledge on, on capacity and how we can utilize, capacity and how we can increase quality, et cetera. Where, we would love to connect and, and, and chat.

Patrick Hypscher: Keiran, thanks a lot for sharing, your story and, all the best for scaling up.

Keiran: Thank you. Thank you for having us. It was a great pleasure.

Patrick Hypscher: I hope you enjoyed this episode of our series on Circular Entrepreneurship in Kenya. If you want to get the actionable one pager about this conversation, sign up for the Circularity.fm newsletter. You can find it at www.Circularity.fm. Let’s drive a profitable circular economy, and please don’t forget, the most abundant renewable resource is your imagination.

 My name is Patrick Hypscher And this is Circularity.fm, the podcast about understanding, building and managing circular business models.