Segun Atanda/
Like a mighty Oak sprouting from a mustard seed, the story of the journey leading to the birth of Nigeria’s only recycling company was told in Lagos yesterday as stakeholders in the waste management business witnessed the rebranding of Freetown Waste Management Recycle Limited as Freee Recycle Limited.
According to its proprietors, the company has done much in meeting Sustainable Development Goals and solving environmental problems in Lagos, a state that is generating 830,000 tons of plastic wastes finding its way into the Atlantic Ocean.
There’s only one incinerator in the whole of Africa. It’s in Ethiopia. Whereas France has 138, according to Mr Jean Marc Ricca, the Guest Speaker at the rebranding event held at Four-Point by Sheraton Hotel, Victoria Island Extension in Lagos.
During the rebranding event, the Managing Director, Freee Recycle Limited, Mrs Ifedolapo Runsewe told the audience how she was inspired to start a waste to wealth project after her encounter with hazardous wastes that fouled the atmosphere with stench belching from the Olusosun Landfill Site as she was travelling on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when she was a staff of Access Bank.
While on a trip from Lagos to Sagamu, she witnessed the burning of refuse going on at Olusosun. On her way back three days after, she noticed that it was still going on, and she could just tell from the odour that waste tyres were among the things burning. After months of research on Google, she found a company in China that was recycling waste tyres into rubber products. She engaged experts to visualize and develop a business plan that would turn the idea into a business in Nigeria. Thereafter, she started looking for funding.
With her team of young minds that she described as “crazy kids at Etim Inyang,” she started modelling, mixing crumped rubber and gum together. They left it on the balcony to set for two days.
She later resigned from Access Bank and joined the team to make a presentation there.
During the presentation, she was asked if her team had ever done such a thing before. She said no. She told them that she got the idea from a YouTube video. The Access Bank team said they would get back to them.
“We kept knocking and here we are today,” Mrs Runsewe said, as she set the ball rolling after the ceremony began with prayers from a stakeholder, Mrs M. Olusoga.
Unveiling the company’s new logo and brand at the event, the Chairman – Ambassador Modupe Gladys Quist Adebiyi spoke about the transformation of Freee Recycle Limited and how the firm weathered the storm when it commenced operation in 2020 at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
She said, “We have been committed to providing innovative solutions to environmental issues of waste management by creating sustainable values, to manufacturing rubber products through the recycling of waste tyres. By collecting discarded tyres, we offer a sustainable solution to a global problem, and by doing so, we add to the global effort of combatting climate change, reducing the volume of waste being sent to landfills and the misuse of tyres for social vices…
“Presently, we are a pioneer company in waste recycling and manufacturing and part of our five-year corporate plan is to be the foremost Pan-African Recycling and Manufacturing Company in Africa, which is planned for execution through the incorporation of our United Kingdom-based Free Holdings Company.”
In her speech, Mrs Runsewe, said, “Our recycling activities have resulted in the prevention of over 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ from entering the atmosphere, prevented an estimated 1,980 malaria-related mortalities while creating an entire value chain of operations.
“We have over 400,000 waste tyres on-site and as of today have recycled over 110,000 waste tyres; producing more than 330,000MT of crumb rubber used in the manufacture of our FREEE rubber products. As of today, we have so many tyres on site that they can be seen from space through Google Earth.
“Freetown Waste currently employs over 150 full-time staff and has over 200 agents and indirect staff including waste tyres suppliers. Our operating site supports over 100 businesses through the development of distribution and retail channels for our FREEE rubber products. We currently project that the company would support at least 20,000 businesses over the next 10 years.
“Our company upholds a vision of a holistic adoption of sustainability practices. We are also proud to note that as of today, Freetown Waste is currently aligned with 12 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals with SDG 12 itself being identified as central to our operations as a recycler.”
Ambassador Quist-Adebiyi who described Mrs Runsewe as an indefatigable, cerebral, hardworking, very competent, focused, and pro-active Managing Director, also told the audience: “I’m glad to note that in today’s corporate society, women are taking leading positions.”
She commended the MD and her team for weathering the Covid period with resilience, commitment, and hope.
Mrs Runsewe further revealed that Freetown Waste Management Recycle Limited was incorporated in January 2018 as a Waste Recycling and Rubber Manufacturing Company aimed at reducing the number of scrap tyres into reusable, eco-friendly rubber products for residential and commercial uses such as playgrounds, offices, sports and event centres, warehouses, manufacturing floors, car parks.
“We spent the next two years engaging potential stakeholders and developing the concept and business structure. Operations commenced in February 2020 with the recruitment of key management staff, and we proceeded to purchase our equipment. In November 2020, we commenced test production with BASF on-site with us. During this period, we were faced with a lot of challenges particularly the covid19 pandemic, which affected the timing of the importation and delivery of our equipment; increased FX rates which posed a lot of problems for us as we needed to secure foreign exchange for our importation, as well as challenges in installing our processing and manufacturing equipment at the Ibadan facility.
“As a pioneer player in the waste tyre recycling and manufacturing industry in Nigeria, we tasked ourselves with developing an innovative operational structure and a strategic plan that would meet our stakeholders’ needs, product quality, customer needs and profitability aspirations.
“In the short time since we have begun operations, we have set up a pilot recycling facility which serves as a Proof of Concept. This facility will facilitate further Research and Development (R&D), and value chain development, accommodate a training facility and enable the company to standardize general recycling operations for its expansion into other locations. We have identified and engaged PanAfrican Strategic Partners such as BASF, Michelin Africa, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Banking partners and APM Terminals to support our expansion plans. We have set up a female-led board for proper governance, accountability, sustainability, and transparency of the company. The board is also focused on sustainable impacts such as Job Creation, Advocacy for recycling amongst others. We have also engaged various Nigerian government parastatals at the Federal, State and Local Government levels for policy changes and for the patronage of Freetown Waste. We are excited to have been featured by Reuters, World Economic Forum, BBC, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Channels TV, TVC and many other media outlets. We are proud to have built an internationally recognizable positive Nigerian brand.
“Today, Freetown Waste operates a five-acre state-of-the-art tyre recycling, Rubber Mat making and Tile Manufacturing facility at Apata, Ibadan, Oyo State. We currently have an installed tile production capacity of 400m2 per day and a mat production capacity of 3200m2 per day. Additionally, we have purchased two new tyre recycling lines with a combined capacity of producing 1450kg of crumb rubber per hour. Freetown Waste has maintained a reputation as an organization that is fully compliant with the relevant regulatory laws in Nigeria. We have successfully acquired all relevant permits and licenses including our Pioneer Status Certificate from the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council, Production Day Certificate & Manufacturer’s Certificate from the Federal Ministry of Industry Trade and Investment. Our pioneer status allows a tax break of up to three years.”
She added: “Optimism to succeed has always been our driving strength with a positive mindset as the major ingredient.
“While the immediate focus is on grounding fundamental aspects of the business (market access,
manpower, raw materials) locally, the business is structured to be all-encompassing. This takes into consideration the impacts on the environment, society, and the commercial viability of the business, with the aim of ensuring that the business is scalable, viable and sustainable.
“The scalability of Freetown Waste’s operation offers clear evidence of our holistic adoption of sustainability. We intend to leverage our value chain and in-country experience for the establishment of multiple waste recycling facilities and expand its recycling and manufacturing operations into every state in Nigeria and into six African countries including Ghana, Ivory Coast,
Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt thereby, growing profitability through our FREEE Franchise Program.
“We have commenced several programmes such as the Extended Consumer Responsibility
Programme and the Extended Producer Responsibility Programme. The Extended Consumer
Responsibility Programme involves partnering with users of tyres, corporates and individuals, to
responsibly dispose of their used tyres. The programme involves us issuing Certificates of Recycling
to individuals and institutions who partner with us to responsibly dispose of their used tyres. We are
proud to announce that we have recently partnered with APM Terminals under our ECR programme.
We also have other corporates such as International Red Cross and some other organisations that
have partnered with us accordingly.
“Through our Extended Producers Responsibility Programme, we invite producers of tyres globally to increase their efforts at environmental responsibility by ensuring that an end-of-life plan is created for the tyres they produce. We are currently in engagements with Michelin for this programme. We are also engaging the government agencies such as NESREA which have an existing framework around the EPR Programme.
“Right from the onset, we recognized that the problem we had in Nigeria with improper disposal of tyres is a worldwide problem. We also knew that the solutions we provide in Nigeria will work elsewhere. Hence, we made a plan to start in Nigeria and then replicate the solutions around the world, starting with other African countries. We further intend on increasing our recycling activities to include PET Bottles and other products. In order to implement our growth plans, we restructured our organization via a holding company in the UK. The Holding company in the UK, Freee Recycle Holding Company Limited (UK), will be the vehicle to facilitate our investments and expansion into other African Countries. We are very excited to get started on the next phase of our incredible journey to driving Africa’s growth by making end-to-end waste recycling and manufacturing services accessible to other African Businesses. We will achieve this by leveraging our strong governance structure, experience, processes, Technology and Strategic Partnerships.
“Majority of the people in this room have been around since our inception. You have watched us win
and you have watched us struggle at times. We ask for more of your support as we assure everyone
that our resolve is strong, we are committed for the long haul, and we are moving fast and moving in the
right direction.
“Lastly, I am proud to introduce FREEE Impact Foundation which was borne as a new initiative through which the advocacy and intervention programmes of the company and its proposed local and international subsidiaries would be executed.
“Our Corporate name change signals the commencement of our Pan-African agenda. It will also align
our now internationally recognized brand, with our corporate identity. We are Nigerians and we care about our environment enough to do something about it.
“I am proud to say that Freetown Waste has steadily evolved from an operation that began in a
Nigerian city to a world-class organisation that is pivotal to the development of the practice of
recycling in Africa.
“As a founder and member of management in this company, I am proud to be associated with this
brand. As a professional in this sector, I see a new leader in this brand. As an investor, I see untold opportunities in this brand. As a Nigerian, we just dey start.”
Ricca, who is the MD of BASF spoke on why it is so critical for ‘us to collaborate in the recycling space’.
He said, “We are wasting a tremendous resource that is available. If you want to tackle the problem, you need everybody. It’s very difficult to bring people together. And if we don’t come together, we are going to have a much bigger problem.”
He said that much wealth could be made from waste, as he spoke about the value chain in plastic products.
“If we have the ability to source, then we have the opportunity to maximize the value,” he said.
“I believe in innovation. Being a tech company, we create chemistry. We love to collaborate with people who have super cool concepts. We are trying to formalize an informal economy. We need to all get-together and address the problem of pollution that we have.
“If you go to Europe, they are building mega plants, incinerators. Do you know how many incinerators we have in Africa? One. In Ethiopia. In my country, we have 138. In Africa, we adopt a decentralized approach: Don’t move waste; just go where the waste is or bring it close to you, and then transform it into something that you can actually upscale. We share with Freee Recycle the same commitment to really scale up. We also want to uprate women empowerment, and decent income in communities.”
Another stakeholder, Mr Steen Krudsen, who is the Manager at Nigeria’s largest container terminal – APM Terminal, in Apapa, said that his company’s activities had been part of the problem in terms of environmental agenda, that’s why they chose to be part of the solution.
APM has been celebrated by the Nigerian Port Authority’s Environment Department of the Health, Safety and Environment Division in 2014 as the Most Environmentally Conscious Port Operator at the Lagos Port Complex.
“We also need to be part of the solution. We do not have the expertise to address our waste problems. We need to partner,” Krudsen said.
Other dignitaries at the event included the company directors – Mr Akin John Taylor and Mr Temitope Runsewe, the Chief Operating Officer – Theophilus Okoyomon, as well as representatives of partner establishments – Access Bank; Sage Grey, a core investor and advisors; Bank of Industry and Providus Bank, the financiers, and the Regional Manager of the Bank of Industry in Southwest Nigeria, Mr Michael Oye who spoke about how viable the business of waste recycling is and why Freee Recycle was supported.
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