Bafana Nyathikazi
Recycling And Business

It started not very good, I must be honest with you. Something touched my soul, a story from an international newspaper - an article about a whale that died somehow somewhere. The marine doctors decided to do a postmortem because they couldn't see what had killed the whale.

I received a call from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal and he said, "Listen, I am a doctor and I'm doing research at UKZN. I need this kind of plastic to research what can come out of it". This was in November 2019.

I've just started lessons at a school, teaching them about collecting and recycling. I give them lessons about recycling, how to do it and the impact afterwards.

People are eager for money, not for service. It takes a certain person to do this kind of business, it takes a real person who is very, very worried about the environment.

Next on the recycling side, on my business side, the purpose is to run all the recyclables up to the end of it. Let's take, for instance, paper. People just know that they shred the paper, they pulp the paper, they put it in the trucks, they take it somewhere. I want to start from the paper, go all the way and make the paper something else.

I promise you, it gave me courage - a big one, because I knew having that certificate is like having an ID. I said, 'I got an ID, now I can be on my own.'

It's not having somebody appreciating what I was doing, I mean somebody close to me. There is a certain sadness to that, not having the support of your brother, your sister, or anyone in your family. When instead of supporting you, they are criticizing what you're doing and demoralizing you, putting you down.

You can be lucky enough to have a partner, to have somebody who can assist you, who shares your passion when it comes to that kind of business. But partners can also have a different vision.

Growing to me, is about getting a bigger space which will acquire more employees and maybe getting funds.

Everybody has a passion. When choosing to start a business or choosing a sector that you want to go into, take a look at yourself and at your hands to understand what you are capable of, and then you can go there.