Fighting climate change one test tube at a time

By Tafadzwa Ufumeli, bird story agency 

On a Saturday in Waterfalls, a suburb five kilometres south of Harare's Central Business District, Stuart Nyakatswau is alone in a warehouse, surrounded by large garbage bags and machines.

His company, Wastiinova, recently moved into the facility and he is busy cleaning and preparing for the busy week ahead.

Despite having 19 employees, he still prefers a hands-on approach and his business is, to him, more than a money-making venture.

Wastiinova is a waste recycling company. Nyakatswau started it in 2017, after coming across a newspaper article.

At the time, he was no longer feeling gratified at his job as a laboratory technician at a local laboratory. He started approaching medical facilities, offering them a service providing proper disposal of their waste. Medical waste usually comprises of syringes, gloves, bandages, human tissue, cultures and other biohazard waste. It cannot be disposed of in the same way people handle domestic waste.

This was a challenge due to the low number of incinerators in Zimbabwe. In Harare, only major government hospitals, including Parirenyatwa, Sally Mugabe Hospital and Chitungwiza Hospital, have industrial-scale incinerators.

The remaining incinerator at Chitungwiza hospital was soon to follow. As someone who was already concerned about the environmental effect of burning waste, however, he recognised these setbacks as an opportunity.

The inquiry triggered a lightbulb moment for Nyakatswau.

At the time, business was picking up and he was realizing some profit, enough for him to make some savings.

What made the idea even more attractive was how energy-efficient autoclaving waste is, compared to burning.

That was in 2019.

As he made the investment, dipping into personal savings, he had no idea of the challenges that lay ahead. The arrival of COVID-19 meant that the proper disposal of medical waste was no longer a luxury for medical facilities, but a necessity. The correct disposal of accessories used in managing clinical cases became a matter of national importance.

Though the world was under distress, for Nyakatswau and Wastiinova, the wave of medical waste became both a problem and an opportunity.

It was from this spike in business that Nyakatswau's company was able to make further investments, solving some of the company's biggest headaches since venturing into business, like transport.

They bought their own vehicles, which meant they were no longer hiring trucks to move clients` waste around.

While COVID-19 regulations have eased in Zimbabwe and medical waste is not longer being created at the same rate,

However, Nyakatswau said the past two years have left the company with a significant footprint. And less pressure has allowed the company to think about value addition.

So Nyakatwau invested in machinery that would allow the company to perform its own recyling.

The pellets can be used to make bin liners and plastic chairs. Again, that offers an opportunity.

Despite the temptation to char the documents into ash, they simply shred them incisively before selling the shreds to those who recycle paper.

They have a zero-burn policy, which Nyakatswau says they are implementing with 95 percent efficiency.

Plastics offer considerable potential rewards.

During the course of the journey, the company has won a number of accolades, the most notable of which was the 2018 Green EnterPRIZE award for Outstanding Business in Waste Management in Zimbabwe.

He used the US$5,000 in prize money to fund the construction of a storage facility he was using. During the same year, AMREF Health Africa identified Wastiinnova as one of the top six emerging health startups in Africa.

The company was also listed among the top nine Global Startups in Medical Waste Management in 2019 by an organisation called Recycling Startups.

That growth strategy includes expansion across the continent. The company's logo is designed with 36 green dots, which represent the countries they intend to venture into. For each country they enter, a dot on the logo will turn to orange.

So far, there are two dots on the logo which have turned orange, representing Zimbabwe and Rwanda.

Besides just collecting and putting waste to good use, Nyakatswau is also seeking to venture into research. The laboratory sciences graduate is now also studying the correlation between incinerating medical waste and colorectal cancer.

bird story agency