Takataka Plastics

Peter Okwoko is a Ugandan environmental and community activist. He received his Masters of Science in Innovative Communication Technologies and Entrepreneurship from Aalborg University in Denmark and taught as a lecturer at Gulu University before co-founding and serving as COO of Takataka Plastics. He is also co-founder of Hashtag Gulu, a community based organisation that works with street connected children and youth.

Takataka Plastics is transforming waste and empowering communities in Uganda by locally recycling plastic waste into quality, affordable construction materials while creating jobs for at-risk youths in a healing, trauma-informed workplace. In Uganda, 600 tonnes of plastic waste are generated daily, releasing approximately 980 tonnes of CO2 from open burning. Takataka Plastics focuses on low-value plastic waste that currently cannot be recycled in Uganda, and our innovative solution is completely local to reduce transportation costs and emissions. Because we manufacture our machines locally at 1/4th the cost of importing, we can easily scale to other towns across Uganda.

The city of Gulu in Uganda is a plastic waste sink — plastic comes in but never gets out because there exist no recycling options. Gulu is a 6-hour drive from the nearest recycling plant and high transportation costs make it economically unfeasible to send low-value plastic waste for recycling. Plastic is either buried in an unlined landfill; burned in open air, which releases carcinogens, toxins, and greenhouse gases; or littered on the street where it blocks drains, creating breeding grounds for malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

The most common form of plastic waste is water and soda bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). PET has a very low recycling value in Uganda because no local industries can use recycled PET flakes and its chemical properties make it difficult to process locally. Recently, China, India, and other Southeast Asian countries have restricted plastic waste imports prompting Ugandan government officials to say they are “really stuck and desperate” because they have no alternate solutions. Plastic is piling up and overflowing from facilities that formerly exported the plastic waste because they have nowhere to send it. 

More than 150,000 people living in and around Gulu have the potential to be impacted by this challenge.   

Takataka Plastics aims to solve the problem of plastic waste sinks and PET in Uganda by locally transforming plastic waste into quality construction materials. We are a low-cost operation, offering the sophistication of modern polymer processing equipment but at a quarter of usual costs by fabricating most of the parts and assembling machines in Uganda. Takataka Plastics is local: we collect and process all plastics in Gulu to cut long transportation distances and costs.

Our engineers have developed and tested a machine that alters chemical properties of plastic and we have successfully processed and produced products from PET. Takataka Plastics’ technology is safety-focused: machines precisely control the temperature at which different plastics melt without releasing fumes hazardous to workers’ health and the environment. We manufacture construction products, which produces enough demand to utilize all the plastic waste. Uganda’s construction industry is $3 billion and growing 10+% annually. We have the capacity to scale to address the magnitude of the waste issue: the construction materials and plastic waste issues are similar across other East African countries; therefore our operation can be easily replicated in other settings.

The project serves people in both rural and urban communities in Uganda. Currently the project employs 15 youths and has been mentoring 10 interns from Gulu University. 60% of Ugandan youths are unemployed, so we are working towards creating employment opportunities for this category of people.  

This project provides employment to street connected youths. About 66% of our employees are former street connected children. We do not only provide jobs to these youth but also offer them trauma counseling and a supportive community to help them transition to independently caring for themselves and becoming productive members of society. 

Through our monthly community cleanup exercises, we have engaged more than 20 local leaders and about 500 members of the community. They have been trained on how to sort waste and have also been introduced to our plastic collection centres to realize the benefit of proper waste management. Also, our school outreach programs have reached up to 2,000 students. The program ensures that the students are trained on the best plastic waste management practices.

When COVID-19 hit, we started production of faceshields to protect frontline medical workers. We have donated more than 1,500  faceshields and are working towards donating even more

Takataka Plastics puts people and the planet as its core. Our target is to transform more than 9 tonnes of plastic waste in Gulu to construction materials and provide jobs to more than 30 street connected youth. 

When Uganda announced its first cases of COVID-19, we asked ourselves, “What could Takataka Plastics do to help our community?” When we heard about the lack of PPE in hospitals, we temporarily transitioned from making construction materials to medical equipment, producing face shields which we donated to healthcare workers across Northern Uganda.

I have always been interested in waste management, yet my passion was fuelled during my studies in Denmark where I became fascinated by how the systems in place ensured minimal littering of plastics and other waste. One particular system (plastic deposits) led me to start collecting bottles from around my hostel and depositing them to nearby machines located at different supermarkets where I would get paid. I was nicknamed “The Waste Man” by peers.  

When I returned to Gulu in 2016, I thought about how best to use locally available resources to combat plastic waste and waste education came out as the first intervention. Resultantly, I founded AfriGreen Sustain, an organisation that undertakes waste education targeting different community groups. Concurrently, I started informal meetings with street-connected youth with some friends that led to the formation of Hashtag Gulu – a CBO supporting street-connected youth. I also engaged my students at Gulu University in developing innovative solutions around waste management.

In 2018, I met Paige Balcom, who was researching plastic waste in Uganda. Together, we opened up a small plastic collection centre in 2019, built prototype machines and made recycled plastic wall tiles and the operation became Takataka Plastics.

My project addresses one of the most pressing issues in Uganda: plastic waste. In the city of Gulu where I live, drainages are clogged with plastic waste and this creates breeding grounds for malaria-bearing mosquitoes. Malaria cases have been on a rise as a result of this and I have personally lost close relatives to malaria.

Stray cattle owned by farmers have died as a result of ingesting plastic waste which is littered everywhere. The loss of cattle greatly impacts families’ who depend on cattle for their livelihood. The economic strain from losing cattle makes families unable to pay for health care and school fees, the latter causing a high school dropout rate. According to Uganda Bereau of Statistics (UBOS), the net attendance rate in secondary schools in Gulu is only 37.9%  

The majority of the community remains unaware about the negative impacts of open burning of plastic waste. The carcinogens and fumes released have caused many health-related complications, including cancer. Seeing the number of cancer patients at my local hospital gives me more reason to be an ecowarrior and derive solutions that will minimize the release of carcinogens through the open burning of plastic.

I was born and raised in Uganda. While growing up, I have witnessed different challenges and easily relate to most of them. Problems associated with plastic pollution have affected my close relatives, too. For example, my grandfather lost some of his cattle because they ingested plastic bags that were littered. I have also witnessed how unemployment has led to many children dropping out of school and ending up on the streets. I am greatly touched by these challenges.

Addressing such challenges needs both determined activism and innovation. I worked as a lecturer at Gulu University for 4 years and, during my tenure, I learnt how to work with different individuals from varied backgrounds. The teaching experience transformed me into a better communicator. At Gulu University, I organised and hosted innovation challenges around waste management. I also organised and talked at different conferences around waste management. These are coupled by the skills I acquired while pursuing my Masters in Innovative Communication Technologies and Entrepreneurship from Aalborg University in Denmark. Knowledge in environmental impact assessment and skills in communicating to diverse stakeholders has made work around waste management and job creation for youth in my community easy to execute.

When COVID-19 hit Uganda, the government instituted a strict lockdown. COVID-19 coincided with Takataka Plastics starting to source for materials for our full-scale recycling machines. We wondered what we would do amidst the constraints. However, when we thought about our community engagement aspect, we realised that there were lots of things we could do during the crisis. At that time, the isolation ward at the hospital was open and functioning, but the hospital didn’t have a budget for COVID-19 cases at the isolation ward. Together with another organisation, we started offering food to the patients.

On my first day to deliver food at the ward, I was saddened by the dismal nature of protection offered to the medical staff at the isolation wards. They lacked proper PPE and only had masks. We then came up with the idea of fabricating face shields from recycled plastics.

We started prototyping with various components we could find around our office and, in two weeks, we had more than 10 prototypes. The final prototype was donated and distributed to health facilities across Northern Uganda. The face shields were appreciated by health workers: one doctor said, “I don’t feel like taking this off!”

Co-founding Hashtag Gulu, the CBO targeting street-connected children, was challenging. People in Ugandan society tend to associate street-connected youth with crime. Oftentimes, they label those working with these youth as ‘promoters of crime’. When we started the initiative, I proposed for open meetings with street-connected youth on a weekly basis. These would then attract community members to come and learn about our meetings and hear stories directly from street-connected youth. This was a great step towards changing the mindset of the community.

Also, five of the kids during our initial meetings were either young or sick. I advocated for individuals to volunteer and offer them shelter. To inspire that, I personally gave shelter to 3 of them. One who was living with HIV/AIDs would then be taken to one of the hospitals in Gulu and put back on  treatment. The home of the youngest one would be traced to have him reunited with family. This brought forth various individuals to offer different necessities to these kids. The organisation has so far grown, and in the wake of COVID-19, we have sheltered 50 street-connected in a newly founded centre, seven of whom have been employed by the Takataka Plastics project.

We are a unique social enterprise. We collect, process, produce and sell the products in the same community, hence, there is no long distance transportation and we create a full circular economy. The carbon footprint that arises from transportation of materials is greatly reduced. We also focus on water and soda bottles which are made of PET which is a real problem in Uganda. There is no solution for PET in Uganda mainly due to the complexity of its chemical properties and its low value. Furthermore, the international export market is now very limited. China and India (which used to be markets for flakes from countries like Uganda) have restricted plastic waste import.

The machines used for processing the plastic are locally manufactured at lower costs. These low cost machinery are more accessible to Ugandan entrepreneurs at 1/4th the cost of importing from the US.

Our impact goes further. Through our #MakeGuluGreen campaign, we do community cleanup activities and also do school outreach programs where we sensitise students about waste management. Also, our initiative employs and trains vulnerable people like street connected youths and offer them trauma counselling while engaging them in different activities in our production line. We also do advocacy for policies that improve waste management in our city. 

Waste is posing a serious threat in Uganda due to the absence of proper waste management systems and increasing use of plastic. The damages caused by waste to the environment, coupled with the already visible effects of climate change, are affecting people’s health, their livelihoods, and their future. Due to the rapid demographic growth in Uganda and the emergence of a middle class, these issues are likely to worsen over the coming years if nothing is done. Massive inequalities favour a small part of the population while most Ugandans struggle. The most vulnerable people are the most exposed to suffer heavy consequences from this climate injustice, including people living in poverty, people with disabilities, people living and working on the street, etc. At Takataka Plastics, we aim to solve this major waste issue by providing employment opportunities and a better future for our communities.    

As good environmental-friendly habits involve behavioural and structural changes, Takataka uses a holistic approach by working with people and with waste directly. Our “Make Gulu Green” campaigns aim at sensitizing the community to the importance of engaging in good habits to reduce the amount of waste produced and to avoid garbage littering the streets and green spaces. We are also actively advocating for concrete governmental actions in favour of waste management and green development. Our third and primary angle is the recycling of plastic waste to give it a second life through our social business, where we also employ vulnerable people as much as possible.

Our objective is to make waste a problem of the past. Through our sensitization and advocacy work, we hope to create real changes in people’s perceptions and habits related to waste as well as proper local government involvement. Our social business also offers concrete local solutions to deal with waste, besides generating self-funding opportunities. By reusing waste, creating employment and working with the communities to reduce the amount of garbage in Uganda, we aim to provide a safer and more enjoyable environment for the young generation currently building our country.

Takataka Plastics currently employs 15 full-time employees, we are mentoring 3 university student interns, and impacting about 5,000 people in Gulu through our outreach and education efforts. In the next year, we will increase to over 35 full-time employees plus about 100 indirect jobs and impact more than 15,000 people with waste sensitization campaigns. In five years, we plan to have ten Takataka operations across Uganda and neighboring countries employing over 350 employees plus 1000 indirect jobs and reach 150,000 people with education efforts about waste management.

In the next year, I hope to help fully launch our Takataka Plastics operation in Gulu to recycle over 9 tonnes of plastic waste per month, create over 35 jobs, educate 15,000 people about waste management, and prove that Takataka can be a profitable, self-sustaining social enterprise. Over the next five years, I hope to help Takataka scale and set up 10 operations in other districts across Uganda and East Africa. 

Also, I hope to help provide skills and rehabilitate up to 150 street-connected youth. This will be through the vocational training and trauma counselling offered at both Takataka Plastics and Hashtag Gulu.

I venture to organize and engage youth in forums geared towards the creation of green businesses in Uganda. Such sessions could be in terms of conferences, workshops, radio talk shows or Innovation challenges. Through these actions, youth will be inspired to start businesses that look beyond profits but also equally address people and the planet.

Our biggest barrier to accomplishing these goals is financial--to set up 10 new operations over the next five years, we need approximately $600,000 plus $250,000 to cover headquarters operating expenses and salaries (not production staff).

We face some market barriers since we are introducing new products. We have to convince customers that our products made from plastic waste are safe, durable, affordable, and beautiful. Our market surveys and initial product tests received very positive feedback, so we believe customers will adopt our products.

We will face technical challenges in finishing building our plastic recycling machines and in developing new products. We especially have challenges getting access to a CNC laser machine to cut a few parts and molds for our machines. We are also currently looking for a lab that can do certified fire tests to test the flammability of our products.

Importantly, we are endeavouring to change people’s mindsets about waste, along with perceptions about street-connected youth.

Through our education and marketing efforts, we encourage people to see waste as a resource and take the responsibility to care for their environment and their community’s health. We also hope to show that  “aguu” (Luo for street-connected youth) are not all thieves but that they can work hard, make beautiful things, and be productive members of society if given the opportunity.

We have raised over $105,000 to-date mostly through small grants, entrepreneurship competitions, and friends. We will continue applying for grants and competitions to finance expansion and headquarters expenses. Production costs and team salaries will be covered by revenue from products. Once a site is set up, each operation will be self-sustainable. We will only have to raise funds for headquarters operations and R&D for new products. As we roll out new and more profitable products, especially in the medical field, we hope that these operations will be increasingly self-financed from sales. 

We have sold more than 1000 faceshields, and 15 people have asked to be beta testers for our wall tiles by installing them in their homes. People who have used or seen our products love them and 10 hardware shops have already offered to be sales agents. People enjoy that products are made locally, provide youth jobs, and make Gulu green. Plus, our products are affordable compared to alternatives.

We have already overcome significant technical barriers in building our own local plastic recycling machine to make durable products out of PET plastic. We have a talented, innovative, hardworking, experienced team of engineers who we believe can solve all future technical challenges if given the right resources.

Beliefs about plastic waste has changed through our education efforts. Schools and businesses have become conscious about sorting waste. With the job opportunities provided to youth on display, we have been able to slowly shift people’s perspectives about street-connected youth.

We partner with Hashtag Gulu, a CBO that works with street-connected youth in Gulu. We collaboratively identify youth from the streets who undergo rehabilitation at our centre and recruited and trained to work at Takataka Plastics. While Takataka Plastics provides some skills training and employment to these youth, they continue to receive trauma counseling.

Also, we partner with the Market Project, a US-based firm that plays an advisory role to shape out social enterprise. They help Takataka Plastics in lobbying for funds to run our activities. 

We collaborate with Gulu University to nurture engineers and MBAs interested in working in the waste management sector. Our locally built machines were produced in collaboration with Gulu University engineers.

Furthermore, Elephante Commons, a community initiative in Gulu has been supportive both by offering us space for our activities and also connecting us to initiatives interested in waste management and youth employment in Uganda.

Lastly, we work closely with the local government. We  have been engaging them in various activities including giving them ideas on how best to manage municipal solid waste. We are also working in collaboration with them in executing the community clean up activity and the school outreach programs.

We build all our machines locally at about 1/4th the cost of importing them. Local production also reduces on maintenance costs as the parts and engineers are readily available and knowledgeable about the machines.

Our raw materials are mostly free of charge. We have multiple mini-collection centres where people freely deposit their plastic waste which we collect. We have also given restaurants and bars free plastic collection bins and offer these restaurants green certificates as an incentive for continuous collection and separation of plastic waste. 

Our waste management campaigns to sensitize members of the community about the impacts of plastic waste and the role of recycling have improved the community’s perceptions and acceptance of recycled plastic. Some members of the community are now responsibly managing their waste and freely depositing them at our collection centres. The demand for our recycled products has been increasing ever since we initiated the campaigns. 

Before the coronavirus pandemic, our main products were wall tiles and the market was contractors and stores selling construction materials. They preferred our tiles to traditional tiles because of low cost, durability and the fact that they are helping curb the problem of plastic waste in the city. When COVID-19 affected our production, we started making face shields for frontline medical workers. Here we used a one-for-one model where for every face shield bought by a private institution, we donated one to a public health institution. To-date we have donated more than 1,500 faceshields to frontline medical workers in Uganda.

We have been raising funds through grants and business competitions. We have been recognized for our innovation by the Big Ideas competition, the Institute for International Education, Stanford University Global Energy Heroes competition, and others. We will continue participating in such competitions and applying for grants until our social enterprise becomes self-sustaining. 

We have also raised funds from the sale of our products. We anticipate that once we have full-scale recycling in Gulu (i.e., with a capacity of recycling more than 9 tonnes of plastic waste per month), we will be a self-sustaining business within two years providing direct employment for up to 35 youth in Gulu city. At that point, we will open up more branches in different cities in Uganda to maximize impact and revenue. 
 
Additionally, the one-for-one model that we have deployed specifically for the face shields has enabled us to raise funds for face shield production and be in a position to market the social aspect of donating to frontline medical workers during this COVID-19 crisis.

We have raised funds through mainly grants and competitions. We received $7,000 from Big Ideas competition, a $25,000 grant through the Institute for International Education Centennial Fellowship, $5,000 for being accepted to the Berkeley AMP accelerator, $5,000 for being Westly Prize finalists, $3,243 from Cocacola Uganda for outreach efforts, $20,000 for being named Stanford Global Energy Heroes, and $8,000 in awards from pitching in the Berkeley AMP accelerator.

We have received over $26,000 from individual donors, $11,000 of which came from members of Church without Walls (CWOW), a church in the US. In the past year alone, we have raised almost $100,000 for our operations to launch a full-scale recycling facility in Gulu.

Additionally, we raised separate funds for the equipment to produce face shields during COVID-19. For the faceshield production, CWOW gave $18,019 and other individuals gave $3,852. This was partly used to offer food aid to the population of Gulu during the pandemic while the biggest portion went into production of faceshields that are being donated to frontline medical workers in Uganda.

Furthermore, we raised $3,600 through GoFundMe. This amount is also strictly for production of faceshields to be donated to medical workers. We have also used a one for one model for the faceshields. We have also sold more than 1,000 face shields for about $2,700. This has enabled us to even manufacture more faceshields and donate to frontline medical workers.

We seek to raise funds of about $40,000 per year to cover headquarters operating expenses and salaries plus about $20,000 for R&D each year to develop new products. Furthermore, to establish 10 new operations over the next five years, we require another $600,000. This however will be required in bits over the next five years. All the funds will be through grants and our participation in business competitions.

Also, we anticipate to make sales after launching our full scale operation in Gulu. The profits in the first year will help cover some of the expenses in setting up new recycling centres that we anticipate to establish in other cities.

Our estimated expenses for FY2020 are about $155,000. Of this, $36,000 is meant for salaries and insurance of headquarters staff. $48,500 is capital investment for building all our recycling machines and purchasing a truck for transportation of plastic waste and products. Production expenses for one year will be around $48,000 (including salaries for the whole production team). $20,000 is for product testing and R&D for new products (we want to expand into the medical field), $2,000 will be required for taxes for our estimated sales, and $850 for community outreach.

To maximize our impact in handling plastic waste in Uganda and creating more jobs for the youths, we need to set up multiple recycling sites across Uganda. We want to set up about 10 recycling centers in the next five years. Also, we need to acquire a CNC machine that will not only be used by our project but also provide opportunities for students at our partner university (Gulu University) and other technical institutions around Gulu to have an opportunity to utilize the machine in developing different innovative solutions. To do this, we need funds and strongly believe that by being one of the winners of the Elevate Prize, we will be closer to achieving our ultimate goal.

Furthermore, we believe that the Elevate Prize will enable us to join a network of like-minded individuals and organizations from whom we will not only share our insights from the Ugandan perspective but also learn from their experiences and expertise. This will indeed give us a push towards becoming even a much better project.

Also, we believe that the publicity as a result of winning the Elevate Prize will inspire other youths in developing countries like Uganda to change their mindset about waste and develop innovative solutions that help address environmental issues and also create jobs for at-risk youths in their communities.

As we anticipate to expand to about 10 cities in the next five years, we need mentors who have worked in and helped develop different social enterprises worldwide. We are looking for individuals with backgrounds in entrepreneurship and business who are willing to give us insights into how to expand our business.

 Also, over the past year, we have realized that we have not been doing monitoring and evaluation of our work. Therefore, getting experts in this field to help in this part would be of great help.

We would like to partner with organisations such as World Wide Fund (WWF), USAID, Green Peace. This is because of their focus on environmental sustainablity and their long history in working in line with environmental matters.

Also, we would love to partner with the government of Uganda in a bid to maximize our impact in other parts of the country.