plasticity

A sustainable furniture manufacturing company offering artistic and quality furniture with space-saving capabilities, made with more than 50% recycled plastic lumber. Cleaning the environment and saving tree/s.

The furniture problem

There has been limited access to quality wood. Therefore, wooden furniture has become expensive, and they are of low quality whenever affordable.

Access to environmentally friendly furniture alternatives options is limited. Making it hard for Eco-conscious consumers in their decision-making when making purchases.

Due to urbanization, people live in rented homes with limited space. Some indoor furniture is essential for comfortable living, but space-saving furniture is in very short supply.

Plastic waste

KENYA

Out of the amount of waste generated in Kenya, plastic waste totals to 4,400 tonnes on a daily basis. Where 27% of the plastic waste generated is collected and only 8% is recycled

0.5-1.3 million tons of plastic becomes waste in Kenya annually. In circumstances where they are burned, they emit 2.9 kg of carbon dioxide equivalent for every kg of plastic.

GLOBAL

Globally to date, there are about 8.3 billion tons of plastic in the world; plastic consumption has quadrupled over the past 30 years, with its production doubling from 2000 to 2019 to reach 460 million tonnes.

Some 6.3 billion tons, more than 75% of the number of plastics produced is trash, accounting for 3.4% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Depletion/ Limited Resources (Trees)

KENYA

In a span of ten years between 2001 to 2021, Kenya lost 368 thousand hectares of tree cover. Equivalent to 180 metric tons of CO2 equivalent causing an 11% decrease in tree cover

In Kenya, we have experienced a higher demand for wood but there has been a limited supply. Hence, we saw a 40% increase in wood imports in 2019, and still on the rise ever since.

GLOBAL

Over 420 million hectares of forests have been lost since 1990, and between 2010-2015 12 million hectares of forest cover were destroyed. Tropical deforestation contributes about 20% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, causing approximately 31% of modern diseases.

26% of tree loss is contributed by logging for pulp, paper, timber extraction, etc

We are a sustainable furniture manufacturing company specializing in space-saving products offering artistic and quality furniture with space-saving capabilities, made with more than 50% recycled plastic lumber. Where with every product, we clean the environment and save tree/s. We aim to eliminate the 100% dependence on wood-based furniture by providing sustainable products.

With the aim of creating a shift in consumerism and striking a balance between lifestyle, quality, and sustainability. Offering products uniquely made with space-saving features (By space-saving, we endeavor to have either of the two or both distinct features; foldable and multipurpose in all products)

Regarding space-saving, our furniture has attributes such as convertible, folding, multi-uses, collapsible, and hiding/ sliding features, which can fit in the small living spaces of our customers’ homes.

Social impact

We are looking into direct and indirect employment to employ at least eight people directly for a start and hundreds of individual, youth, and women-group waste collectors indirectly (integrating formal and informal plastic waste collectors into our value chain).

Upskilling the locals with an interest in carpentry and upholstery through learning and working for us as; casual workers, employees, or part-time workers.

Economic impact

The aim of pricing our products favorably facilitates a more competitive furniture manufacturing industry.

Plasticity-related impacts are not only limited to the national scale of implementation. But, our model is globally replicable, and the same can be scaled globally where plastic pollution is a problem, with the need for a space-saving furniture.

Dancan Shear Dominion, Founder, Business development

An entrepreneur, with a two-year experience from his first start-up, Corrugated Artworks.

Started with simple entrepreneurial classes from a MasterCard foundation program, CAP, a youth empowerment institute. Later, attended workshops on entrepreneurship themed sustainability, Circular Innovation Hub, a subsidiary of WEEE Centre and Circular Economy Catalyst a workshop implemented by Adelphi, supported by IKEA foundation.

Joan Matere, co-founder, Lead Designer

A young lady, an ongoing architect student, bringing on board fresh skills. She is the designer of our products, and with every products, she portrays a touch of skill, art and modern designs.

With simplicity, worked out a way we can produce a limited number of plastic lumber that can be used for a wide range of products. Currently done with our murphy bed and dining set designs and already working on the rest of the other products.

We are so passionate about circularity, sustainability and climate change and strongly committed to embrace them through four ways:

• Saving the environment- collecting waste plastics from the environment, waterways and preventing them from ending there.
• Saving trees- using plastic lumber to manufacture our products, an alternative to wood.
• Recycling- utilizing the collected plastic waste as our main raw material, while our own products are recyclable as well.
• Educating the public- building community based programs in circularity and conducting educational tours in our facility

Survey- We gathered data online with a questionnaire from our target consumer to know how feasible it is on doing space saving furniture using plastic lumber

Diversity of products- We offer a wide range of essential indoor furniture products. Our designs include upholstered furniture designs.

Space-saving capabilities- Our products are uniquely designed with space-saving features

Quality- Our products offer long time effectiveness through plastic lumber, which is unaffected by rot, mildew, mold, insects, and stains and is resistant to cracking and splitting. Sustainability/ circularity- Our products reduce plastic waste carbon footprint while saving resources (trees).

In our first year of operation, we aim to make use approximately 15 tonnes of waste plastics to make furniture and related products, giving a second life to what would have been considered as waste, saving the equivalent number of trees that would have been cut to manufacture the same furniture.

Our products are not only made from waste plastics but also are by themselves recyclable contributing massively to the reduction of plastic waste carbon footprint.

Educating our community like waste collectors, our customers and any other interested parties the benefits of waste management, waste segregation and recycling. Hence, build community based recycling programs in the cities and towns we work in.

We first acquire plastic waste from four set of people. Individual collectors, youth and women groups, waste collectors and lastly organizations such as PETCO who we are in the process in getting into a memorandum of understanding to help us in acquiring waste plastics.

Specifically we will need only two types of plastic waste; polypropylene and polyethylene. After receiving these two types of plastics, they are sorted and extruded into plastic planks that we will be using to manufacture our furniture.

They are extruded into two forms, 1 by 20 and 2 by 10 inches plastic planks while adding some reinforcement and additives to help in strength, retard fire inhibit UV rays and colorants to facilitate the color. From these planks, our space saving furniture are manufactured.

We are looking into direct and indirect employment, with the aim of employing at least eight people directly for a start and hundreds of individual, youth and women-group waste collectors indirectly (integrating formal and informal plastic waste collectors into our value chain).

Upskilling the locals with the interest of carpentry and upholstery through learning and working for us when more staff are needed or rather casual workers

• Our first target market being students joining higher learning institutions, giving us a rough number of over half a million on annual basis and well distributed within the twelve months. 
• Majority of households live in urban areas in Kenya amounting to 7.4 million households. Kenya’s middle and upper class accounts to more than 50% of the population, this leaves us with an approximate 3.7 million prospect customers of our products.
• Eco conscious consumers, eco-consumerism is clearly on the rise, consumers whose concern for the environment affects their day-to-day buying decisions.
• Modular furniture and interior designers- we aim to offer this service to businesses and individuals who need furniture items that are tailored to suit their needs. As we also offer plastic lumber to interior designers who will opt to use it as a substitute to wood.

·     Competition from wood products

·     Threat of new entrants, copycats.

·     Unpredicted legislative framework to plastic waste management in the country Competitive market price

• Already in talks with PETCO Kenya, a waste collecting company, who are willing to help us acquire plastic waste. 
• looking to working with NAI TECH who launched the Plastic Clinic in terms of collecting plastics

Social impact

We are looking into direct and indirect employment, with the aim of employing at least eight people directly for a start and hundreds of individual, youth and women-group waste collectors indirectly (integrating formal and informal plastic waste collectors into our value chain).

Upskilling the locals with the interest of carpentry and upholstery through learning and working for us when more staff are needed or rather casual workers

We are so passionate about circularity, sustainability and climate change and strongly committed to embrace them through four ways:

• Saving the environment- collecting waste plastics from the environment, waterways and preventing them from ending there.
• Saving trees- using plastic lumber to manufacture our products, an alternative to wood.
• Recycling- utilizing the collected plastic waste as our main raw material, while our own products are recyclable as well.
• Educating the public- building community based programs in circularity and conducting educational tours in our facility

This will be determined by the goals and target we set for ourselves on quarterly, bi-annual and annual basis in terms of sales, profits and saving the environment.

• Profit and sales
• Tonnes of plastic collected and used
• Number of trees saved
• Kg’s of CO2 emissions sequestered
• Number of people employed

HOW WILL YOU USE YOUR FINANCES

Get an extruder machine, which will help us create plastic lumber that will be our main raw material in the manufacture of our furniture

Get a premise, which we will use to conduct our business, store plastic lumber as well as our already manufactured furniture

Acquire a working capital of several months, in which it will cover Utilities & Overheads, Acquiring of raw materials, Selling and Distribution Expenses and Salary and Wages

Personnel (Manpower) Requirements- Requirement of Staff & Labor (Skilled and Unskilled) Managerial, Technical, Office Staff and Marketing Personnel

we will be selling our products through three main ways

·         Online stores

·         Physical stores 

·          website

but also thinking of later franchising the furniture business