 So Bune, we were having a conversation behind cameras on the e-waste draft bill of 2013 which has been stuck in parliament for almost seven years now. What's the legal framework when it comes to waste management? So there is, what we are doing now in absence of the e-waste law, we are using international law, so there are different conventions that have been put in place globally that regulate matters to do with e-waste. For example, there is a Bamako Convention, there is Basel Convention, so with those we are able to benchmark with other countries. There is a we directives in Europe, so we directives, they are able to regulate matters to do with e-waste in Europe, so we've had to use such legal frameworks but in Kenya there is a EMCA which is the Environment Act. With the Environment Act it captures anything to do with waste management and the environment and also we are guided by the constitution of Kenya which assures everyone of a safe and clean and secure environment. But with the e-waste law, the e-waste bill, once that is in place it will change how the entire sector is operating, you will find that it will also generate a lot of revenues for the government. It will ensure that electronics in Kenya when they come, let's say a manufacturer or importer brings electronics to Kenya, they will be required to pay levies to the government for the end life of those equipment. So you will not find that you as a person will be 100% responsible for your old electronics. Already the manufacturer who brought it to Kenya or the importer has already paid the government to take care of the disposal. So I will not even be charging companies to dispose because the government will set a fund that will be able to take care of that. So you find having e-waste law creates responsibilities for all the stakeholders including Nema. Nema will have very good enforcement framework such that any recycler will be required to send reports to Nema to show what you've been able to recycle at the end of the year. Any importer that is importing electronics before even getting operating license you need to show that you took care of the electronics that you brought in the previous year. So we are hoping and we've been doing a lot of pushing the government for the e-waste law to be put across and if that happens you find the environment will be safer than it is now. What impactful role has Nema playing being its government agency responsible for environment matters? Nema is a regulator. So being a regulator of course they go around ensuring that the environment is clean. Of course there are also partners if you go to Nema they will tell you if you have e-waste contact we center they will be able to take care of it. They are also the licensing authority to ensure that matters of environmental impact looked into but I think they are not as well funded as they should be so if they are funded more they will be able to enforce whatever laws are in place but as a regulator currently they are also involved in matters of policy like the Nema guidelines also which are able to guide us on how to go around matters to do with e-waste. So at least they have done the Nema guidelines they have assisted in coming up with a national e-waste strategy so matters policy law enforcement Nema is also involved in that. So probably you can tell us a couple of achievements as we centers that you have gathered since you guys started. Okay so the one of the achievements number one we have become the only company in Africa to be ISO certified to deal with e-waste so we center currently is ISO 9001 of 2015 certified and ISO 14001 of 2015 certified that's a big achievement meaning that any electronics that you bring to we center for disposal it will undergo tara processes and we have systems in place to ensure that that is well taken care of. The other achievement we've done over 10,000 tons of e-waste that we've disposed since we started safely. How many years are those? That should be for the last about eight years. Okay the other thing we've able to create jobs we've created over 600 jobs in Kenya to mainly the youth who we work with we are also setting up in 15 countries in Africa apart from Kenya so we've already started the process of setting up because we want the entire continent to be able to take care of the e-waste in Africa so those are some of the achievements and there are many we've established easy collection points for Kenyans we've also created a lot of awareness some years back when you mentioned e-waste nobody knew about it but now anybody when you say e-waste they'll say oh mobile phone or computer so they can relate so that awareness and at least even been invited here to talk about e-waste means that we as we center we've really done a lot in creating awareness and also global and ensuring that the policies are in place and also the laws we've been involved in all these documents that are already existing from the drafts law bills to the policy documents to the national e-waste strategy you know so I feel we've really contributed to building this sector and also in years to come there will be other companies that will come up in the recycling of e-waste sector that will also be an achievement absolutely yes Over 600 job opportunities have there been in a situation whereby you had to lay people off due to COVID-19? Yeah of course COVID-19 has hit businesses hard including we center because our mainly our disposers are companies so if companies are hit you find they will also not dispose a lot of electronics as they were disposing before but in terms of staff some of our staff are working from home others are still working in the office but like now the many jobs you find the many guys that we had were guys who are doing logistics and also collection so if I like now they cannot do those collection in the in the counties so that has really slowed down even the the e-waste that is coming and also some of them are paid based on the quantities that they are able to bring if they collect on our behalf so there's a lot of jobs that have become slowed down others we don't know how long this will take but what I know is that the appetite for IT has increased meaning post COVID although we don't even know when post COVID is there will be a lot of e-waste generated because right now everyone is going online schools are buying in learning material people are working from home so at some point you find even companies they will need to upgrade their systems their hardware meaning they will need to dispose of even you guys maybe you need to to upgrade your cameras you know and then the cameras that you're using they have brought to we center because you need cameras that are also upgraded so I can say the future is very bright and there's even a big opportunity to even create more jobs we are looking at even creating I think 1400 jobs within the medium term yeah so I think there's there's a there's a bright future for everyone in Kenya in the in the job sector all right let's look at the approach the we center response to COVID-19 okay so that's an interesting one so COVID-19 of course nobody expected it to come so we have had to make a lot of adjustments including constructed new offices so that we can now have social distancing in the office so we've had to build an entire new office block also we've had to have people working from home which is very complicated this is something that we we never anticipated and you find the working from home some people might think it is something that is easy or people are not busy but I think we are even more busy when you're working from home I don't know for other companies but you find for us it's like unlimited anytime there's an email that you need to respond to there's some communication you need to do so you find it's not now the typical eight to five working you're even working up to midnight or whatever time so there's been a lot of adjustments of course we have to ensure that all the government protocols are observed like our workers although we've been using PPE for for a long time yeah so we did not struggle wearing masks because in the office we've had to be wearing masks because one way when you're dealing with the west you have to ensure that safety is very important and health so we've had to also increase the PPE that we're using also issues of sanitation and all that so it's it's not easy but I can say where we are now at least we've made adjustments and I read somewhere that you guys have an app the We Center app ah you've done good homework thank you very much how can people get access to the We Center app yeah it's on google play it's just We Center if you look for the We Center on google app you will find it you download it still captures your data the same way the online form captures your data and then makes it easier for you to dispose you just click the dispose button how can people find your cross all social media platform anywhere you just search the We Center you find it so facebook the We Center twitter the We Center we have a youtube channel the We Center instagram also the We Center and our website is www.wecenter.com and We Center is W triple E people always forget the third E maybe you should elaborate and what each word stands for so the it's waste yeah that's the W electrical and electronic equipment so that's we yeah so that's e-waste and then center meaning that we take care of all those things and we take care of all the six streams of e-waste so there are six streams globally recognize six streams once again congratulation for top 35 and 35 on 12 happened on 12 of august international youth day and you worked away with the word on the category of technology thank you you were so humble you were so humble thank you very much for creating time to be with us bonnie i appreciate it and we've got to learn a lot and we'll do proper disposal yeah i'm waiting for us from y254 okay i know you are a bit new but i can still see some cables running around here which i think i see you are done you are looking they can still end up becoming uh us you see opportunities everywhere you have to see you have to see opportunities okay thank you very much thank you guys for staying tuned for this conversation we'll go back to a musical break and we'll be right back it's a little bigger it's a little bigger