It was a simple question from his dad that prompted 33 year old Pravashen Naidoo to create Africa’s first light bulb recycling business.

Naidoo is the founder of E-Waste Africa, a waste recycling company that specialises in the sustainable and environmentally-friendly disposal of light bulbs. It is based in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal.

He was recently awarded R400,000 for coming second in SAB’s KickStart Boost 2016 programme which focuses on youth entrepreneurship. He also bagged the Nedbank PCB spirit of entrepreneurship award on Tuesday night.

Naidoo, who has a BSc in Electro-Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cape Town also spent a year at Wits Business School. When he ventured into the corporate world, he held the plant manager position at Unilever.

In an exclusive interview with infrastructurene.ws, Naidoo said a few years ago his dad had asked him what Unilever did with its old light bulbs. “Surely someone must be recycling these bulbs,” his dad said.

“I did not think much of his statement back then, let alone think that I would end up being Africa’s first person to recycle bulbs using our advanced method,” Naidoo said. It was this that led him to conducting a feasibility study on the concept. “The rest as you would say ‘has been recycled’, over a million times over the last 2 years,” he said.

Core focus

Naidoo said the company offers corporates, government institutions and parastatals several options for lamp (light bulb) waste disposal. This includes the onsite storage, collection, crushing and recycling of the bulbs.

“This offering meets four critical needs for corporates,” Naidoo said. These are:

• Lowering the client company’s hazardous waste environmental footprint
• Focusing on making zero waste to landfill a reality
• Ensuring clients are fully legally compliant as the ban of light bulbs to landfills was passed in 2016.
• Job creation while protecting the environment

Investing in growth

Naidoo said the business took a few years to get off the ground, and after legal applications were made and licences were received, the business began with one employee kicking it off.

Two years later, the business has already expanded from its initial plant in Pietermaritzburg to Gauteng. Naidoo said the company has now established a national collection network and currently has 13 permanent staff.

Naidoo also said that the money that E-Waste Africa was recently awarded will be used in the company’s collection network to purchase vehicles and equipment to better improve its service delivery to clients.

On the legal front

Section 5 (1) of the Norms and Standards for Disposal of Waste to Landfill includes a list of waste streams prohibited for disposal to landfill. “The given period since promulgation of these norms and standards implied that from August 2016, lamp disposal will not be permitted at any landfill site,” Naidoo said.

He emphasised that as part of legal compliance and applicable legal obligations, E-Waste Africa, devised a business plan that provides “a total environmentally ethical, legally compliant, light bulb recycling solution”.

He also explained that the mercury in the bulbs is highly carcinogenic and that E-Waste Africa provides the solution for the safe handling and recycling of these products for reuse in the market.

The future and taking on Africa

E-Waste plans to recycle over 100-million light bulbs a year, which will save 20,000 tonnes of hazardous waste from entering landfill sites across South Africa.

Naidoo said he is currently working on sustaining the company’s eco-footprint across the country, and is looking to move into Africa for the future growth of this business.

Although he admits that it was difficult leaving a secure job at Unilever, he said “opening my own business was all I’ve ever wanted to do”. “

“Knowing this drives me, there are sacrifices or trade-offs that you have to make daily, but I am truly doing what I want to be doing,” he said, “Which is to literally change the world.”