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Africa economy with today this entrepreneurial initiative in Lomé, the Togolese capital, where African Global Recycling (AGR), specializing in waste recovery, employs 50 people full time. The young company also reserves 30 vacation jobs for students each year and also recruits casual workers.
Founder and Managing Director of African Global Recycling, Edem d’Almeida is proud to show its waste sorting center in Lomé, located in the old quarter of Tonkoin. It is the only center of its kind for the moment in Togo and West Africa, because it is multi-sector. ” It is a center that accommodates different types of plastics, metals, glass, wood, paper, cardboard. Our credo is to recover what is recoverable and to find ways out in the industrial world for this waste. »
Car bumpers, computer shells picked up from the streets, plastic bottles or other plastic packaging from households, landfills, schools, different types of paper or waste collected from local industries; they are all crammed by category. The recovery of all this waste is quite an organization, details Edem d’Almeida. ” It is a commercial approach. So, we do prospecting, we identify the materials we are looking for according to our needs. We identify companies and institutions with which we can find this waste, but at the same time sell services, because our activity also involves selling collection services, sale of waste management equipment. »
After sorting comes transformation
And for an optimal functioning of this activity which falls under the circular economy, African Global Recycling has another service: the structuring of the business, for the moment in Togo, with the informal actors of waste collection. After sorting, then comes the transformation of each type of waste for a new use, with production units depending on the raw material: for paper, for grinding and washing of plastic, for metals, mainly non-ferrous, etc. . “ Everything that arrives here is sorted, according to a certain number of criteria: nature, color, cleanliness, and this is what will then allow us to also gain confidence and retain our industrial sectors, which are for the Most in Europe, Latin America today, a little in the Middle East and also in a regional market in West Africa », He explains.
The boss of AGR affirms that waste recovery can be a sector of the future, everywhere, especially in Togo. ” The waste sector can now be organized around all the services that can be developed and after the State, be the first employer in this country. »
In 2020, African Global Recycling recovered 2,000 tonnes of waste in Togo for recovery, while the collection only lasted 4 months due to restrictions linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
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