 Hello, thank you so much for keeping us company. This is why in the morning, thank you so much for being a part of us today. Entrepreneurship Tuesday, we are talking about the Kenya acquisition of manufacturers, the customer borah digital. We want to see how things are. Actually, my guest this morning is a head of PR communication and marketing. Miss Kahilu, Kenya Association of Manufacturers, good morning. Morning. Thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having me. Maybe to begin our conversation this morning, you could maybe tell us about the KAM. People here about waste management, recycle. So, what is it all about? So, Kenya Association of Manufacturers has many facets to it. Really our primary goal is to make sure that businesses have a good environment in which to operate and they have an environment in which they can be productive and profitable. So, what we do is that we work with the government to be able to create policies to ensure that businesses, both large and small businesses and even micro businesses, can be profitable and productive and have the capacity to offer meaningful employment to Kenyans. So, that's really our primary reason for existence. We've been around for 60 years. So, last year we celebrated 60, we are now 61 and we hope to continue to do this for the next 60 years and just continue to raise the bar making Kenya a great investment destination in Africa. So, that's our core, policy advocacy is our core business. But within policy advocacy, we have different facets, we have obviously issues on taxation, we have now issues on waste management and recycling which is what you are alluding to and which I guess is part of your interest and what we want to talk about this morning. Yes, of course because you partnered with an initiative DHC of Juliani and its initiative is kind of encouraging the young people, bringing young people together where we have seen how they've tried to control waste management in terms of the bottle they collect to the manufacturing. Now, how has it been? How has the journey been? And when did you join them? So, the waste management conversation in this country really started when we had the plastic bag ban. Before that, the country wasn't very engaged into this conversation and then the plastic bag ban came and it was now a reality that waste is something that we all have to deal with in our lives. We weren't quite prepared for it as a nation, there was just that entire blanket of confusion. Now that we've decided to take this route when it comes to waste management, what does this mean for us as a country? Do we have the systems in place to be able to sustain this kind of initiative? Because really the goal for everybody is to live in a cleaner country because a cleaner country means a more healthy population. It means a population that can actually be productive. It means a better life for everyone and for future generations. So, I guess we were not very prepared for that conversation but then plastic bag ban happened and now we were forced to come to the table and have this conversation as a country. So, that's where the journey started for Kenya Association of Manufacturers. I mean, we've been talking to the government before but this now became a let's involve all the stakeholders towards a shared vision for what is waste management. The truth of the matter is that when you're dealing with waste, you have to think long term because as long as there is human life, there has to be waste that is produced. So, you can't always think of a ban as the first knee jack reaction or the solution, the first solution that comes to mind. What can we do that is sustainable because we'll always have waste. So, we might ban plastic waste but then we are talking, now I think the world is talking about e-waste. There's a lot of e-waste and what are we doing about that and have we even begun to think about the ways to manage that waste because it's a lot. And where is it getting dumped? So, that's where now we started evolving a lot of stakeholders including now grassroots community groups like Dandora Hipop City. That's now we brought everybody to the table and we said let's have this conversation, let's look for long term solutions, solutions that are both environmental solutions and economic solutions. So, now we came up with this, we didn't really come up with it but we tapped into what the global conversation calls the circular economy. So, the circular economy is finding a way to make use of products where they are at their end stage, their end stage is waste. So, menunua your packet of milk, you've consumed the milk, where does that packet go to? Can we see a product to all the way to, can we for example see that this packet goes back to the person who produced the packet and then somehow goes back to another use or goes back to package the milk again. So, it's a circular, yeah so it's recycling, it's reducing, it's reusing. Yeah, so the three hours, exactly. So, it's just knowing how to make this something that we can economically benefit from as a country. So, other grassroots community groups have been involved. It's just that Dandora Hipop City was our one of the first groups that we brought on board to see how we involve communities, how do we evolve bigger populations because sometimes conversations can take place in board rooms and then nobody else knows what's going on and then the solution doesn't work. I think that has been happening in many areas. Yes, so that's how now we got to talk to Giuliani and his colleagues at Dandora Hipop City. It's actually a big group at Dandora and they are artists, they are young people, they are artists, they are creatives and we are in the corporate world. So, we want to see how can we reach the bigger masses and they are the bridge, they are the people to help us do this so that what we speak is not just corporate speak, is that whatever I say can make sense to anyone whether you're in Kericho or Wajia or it can make sense to you but I can't assume that the language that I am using will be or the way that I am speaking you will find it important. So, we had to involve Wasani, you know, so you know the way people say Wasani is Kiyoya Jami. Yes. So, those people really, artists really talk to the community in a way that nobody else can and that is why art is a great thing and it's a great thing for us to invest in this country. So, Dandora Hipop City came on board and said look this is what we do, we are a hip-hop group, we speak to the youth and not just the youth, the community respects. When was this? So, this was in 2017. Okay. Yes, so 2017 we reached out to them and said what can we do together, the community respects them, they actually do more than just rap, they actually have brand rehabilitation programs in the community that they are operating in, so they are talking to the youths about living the life of crime, living from crime and coming to do something more substantially in their lives. True. We are trying to do many more things to transform their communities in different ways, so this is how now we engage them and we said for us we think the whole country, we shouldn't just look to the government or private sector to give us solutions to waste management, we should look at everyone. Right. And so, we said about the public and the community is a very big part of it and Dandora Hipop City can help us reach everybody including the youth. So, Juliani came on board as the main representative for Dandora Hipop City and we started to look at what we can do together. So, initially what we were doing is we had some exchange programs so they'd come over to Kenya Association or manufacturer as they'd tell us what we do then we'd educate them on the waste management programs we want to roll out and then we'd go over to Dandora Hipop City, we'd look at what they are doing and see how we can add value to them. So, Juliani and the group came up with the customer borough initiative, so customer borough initiative is an app for waste management, you download the app and it's really incredible because what you do is once you download the app, it's mostly for plastic bottles, what we call PET, so it's mostly for plastic bottles recycling. It's a plastic bottles recycling program so once you download the app you tell, you indicate where you want your waste to be collected, mostly the plastic bottles. So that means that you have to have thought from home how to segregate. Ya, so you don't just throw your Elianto bottle and whatever, your Coca Cola bottle together with your mbogas that you didn't finish last night or you segregate from home and then now you get your plastic bottles together in a way that they can be recycled, then you indicate where you want them to be collected from or where you can go and deposit the plastic bottles that you've collected. Then once you deposit them to what we call the Taka Bank kiosk, so once you deposit them there, you earn points on your app, these points can help you buy unga, sugar. Oh, where is this money coming from? So, the app is the one that gives you the points, you're not given money, no one is giving you cash, so that's what you're saying, you can trade in your plastic bottles for goods and products that you can use in your house. So there doesn't have to be cash exchange, so what they do is that they weigh, so bring your plastic bottles, if they weigh a certain KG, then your points are maybe 300 and that earns you milk, unga and sugar and salt. So the more plastic bottles you collect and the more KGs you have, the more you can even do shopping for a month or two months. If we having this app and for the last few days we've been experiencing grains and our trenches are filled with these bottles, how much awareness have you created because I'm sure some of our audience out there, they're hearing this for the first time. It's true, some people are hearing it for the first time and let me tell you the journey of a thousand miles, start with one step, you can't just start and become something, whatever great thing that you want to be tomorrow. So we started this journey in 2017 slowly, we've been building it with different partners, infact over the last year we joined with companies that do a lot of events that target big populations, for example October 1st, Blanquets and Wine, so we've been joining with partners who are doing some of these events and telling people and we've been bringing beans for recycling to those events and telling people actually when you're eating your crisps throw your crisps paper here and throw your soda bottle here so that you can segregate so that it makes it easier for the recyclers to then get their products and recycle and reuse or make it into something else. So we are really, it's something that we are building, we are increasing awareness and we are increasing partnerships because you see awareness we can't just build as Kenya Association of Manufacturers, it's by partnering with people like Y254 Kenya to tell people what we are doing. I'm just going out there and talking to everybody and saying in your own way can you speak to your own communities, can you speak to your own audiences and say that there's this initiative that is going on, but also I think behavior is very hard to change. So you can raise awareness and put up billboards all over the city but there's also the fundamental thing of culture and behavior and how do we begin to transform this because I think in other economies you will find like for example in Japan they teach children from when they are in kindergarten that there is value to waste, that value just is not waste, it can be valuable, you can remake flower pots from your plastic bottles, you can remake pens, you can remake t-shirts, this chair is made of probably something that could have gone to waste. So since we don't have that in Kenya and it's something that obviously we can get into a bigger discussion with government about incalcating into the education system but since we don't have that, where we have to start is further than everybody else because you can imagine if you are just used to, you don't even know where your end, do you know where your end product goes? Obviously I do not. You do not, many Kenyans don't. In our conversation you've been mentioning soda bottles but the question would be which kind of bottle is it, the plastic one is it the glass one? On what exactly? Because now if I'm disposing like the people you partner with, I'm also looking into a space in the Matatu industry, someone has taken some water in those bottles. Now have you incorporated this sector into plan, how have you created awareness in this area or what kind of bottles are we talking about? So mainly right now we are talking about the PET plastic bottles, so that's your normal plastic bottles, because you see glass can be recycled and many people recycle glass. However the advantage of plastic and which is why it was one of the biggest inventions of its time is that plastic is a safe packaging solution. So glass you can give it to me and you can handle glass but even when we were talking to some of the people we are partnering with like Kenya Rugby Union that we want to actually solidify our partnership this year, they were saying we can't bring glass bottles into the field because guys will drink, get rowdy, drop the bottle, it will break then players will get hurt or people will get hurt. So sometimes you have to look at the options that we have and the options that we have are great, the plastic bottle option is great as a packaging solution. It's just we have to manage where it ends up and how we recycle it and how we reuse it. And some people have actually used plastic to make t-shirts. I can share with you and you can share with your audiences later a video which shows one of the recyclers and the Kenya Association manufacturers who takes recycling bottles and makes t-shirts out of them. So it's got many uses but that is our primary focus for now is the plastic bottles and then as we continue with this campaign we are going to look at moving into larger waste in terms of waste management. But the conversation of waste management as I said is a large conversation. Actually what is on our screen is one of the uses of these materials and actually on Mombasa Road somewhere in Lukenya there's a person who has made a fence using these bottles. But also now when the people bags were banned these bottles took space because now they are clogging our seweries so I'm wondering do you have aware of these people who collect them? How do they separate them from the waste because now actually this is a behavior that we have with people out here. Like I mentioned you drink water you threw the bottle outside the window and this is a behavior. Is there a way other than the liters we see in our streets you dump here but you see someone dropping it down. Which other way can we have a collective behavior or culture where we will be collecting these liters and the bottles to be specific in a way that even the person will come to take them they will have no problem dealing with the mess. Okay so I think the issue of clogged infrastructure has a lot more to do with other factors and waste is one of them. But it's not a main factor there's a lot more factors like if you can look at we are not the only city that gets floods and clogs you know it's a phenomenon all over the continent and some in some places all over the world. So there's other factors to clogging sewers and inadequate infrastructure. But as you say and one of the things that we are actually working with the government towards is to see how we can build capacity for our waste collectors in the streets. So that we can build capacity for them to be able to do this aggregation because as you say right now they don't have the capacity to do that. Right now they are just thinking I have licenses to pay I have this and this I need to make my collection by this time. And then you know so if we can enable them if we can somehow give them the capacity to be able to segregate when they are coming to your home. But even you at your home you know do you even have the space to segregate. So we have to build capacity we have to build knowledge and education from the home so that when that guy comes even him with the capacity that we've built he knows he's picking the blue bin for plastic bottles. The green one is the one that has blah blah or you know he knows that there's a difference from the home. They can't do that on their own they can't for example come to your house and start saying OK this is the cabbage that was spoiled we'll put it here. You see so there's no that capacity but there has to be capacity built in terms of system in terms of infrastructure for this people to be able to collect and segregate. Because even sometimes when you dump something and I want to pick it as a recycler the mana in which you have dumped it has degraded the quality of the bottle for example plastic bottle. So I can't even recycle it as a recycler I will have no way to recycle it because the value is too degraded it can't be reused. So we have to look at I think we have to change a lot in our system in terms of education in terms of awareness but even the practical things. Do we have enough bins in the city and if we do how do we tell people OK this is where you dump this and this is where you dump that. So there's a long we have a long way to go. We are not proclaiming to have all the solutions in the world we are just saying we have started this conversation as a country is a conversation we need to have in the next 10 years. We want to have seen progress. OK we want to have seen progress because the truth is our landfills are too overwhelmed. Now sadly before you respond to how the journey has been with the DHC you have mentioned about the app and since you are talking about the entrepreneurship we have young people out there with the app now. Is it an initiative that I can decide now because there are no jobs. This is a plan B I decide on my own I will be collecting these bottles and then I upload them and then someone comes for them. Is it a profitable thing to venture into. So I think Juliani and his partner would say it is but it would take time for you to realize some of these gains. And the thing is if you get into something and the truth is there's an immediate need right now which is why systems have to be created so that when there's a collection initiative people can realize economic gains from it. So that is something that we are working on. However it's not a get rich quick scheme. It would take time for you to realize because the idea even of waste management is a new idea in and of itself. So I know that it has been working for some of the residents around Dandora which is where Dandora hip hop city and some of the taka banks have been set up and I've witnessed it myself that people come with Agunia of plastic bottles and it's weighed. And on the app they are told you've now gotten 300 points and now they can get some of the food stuffs that they want. But you also have to look at which are who are going to be your partners who are going to be your stakeholders in your endeavor to do this. So maybe some of the first people to approach and to talk to will be Juliani and his partners and to see how they have made it work so far. What can you be part of the value chain or do you need to go and start something on your own similar to that and work with other partners. So it's about again collaboration and partnership which is what we are doing as Kenya Association of Manufacturers. Alright now with the Dandora hip hop city for that period of time you've been together how has the journey been. How have you impacted their lives out there because I know one of the initiatives of one of the objective was to end crime where they were saying crime sepua and then with the customer Bora. How has it been working with them. I think it's been great they've been getting a lot of young people on board. They've been educating in their own capacities in their own groups because I think there's Dandora hip hop city which is the main group but then they have sub groups which then speak to different parts of their community. And they've been trying to get more and more young people on board and to tell them kindly help us collect kindly or just to educate them and make them aware on the benefits of waste management. And then getting them on board and having them be a main and active participants in this initiative so that they are the ones then now going out there and telling people in the community you don't have to throw this away. Stoke it at the end of the week see what you have to go to the taka bank. So they are also educating the educators so that's also part of what they are doing. They've come up with community events where they've passed on this message using their music and that has been amazing. We've also just been talking to various stakeholders together to see who else we can bring on board both on the corporate side and private sector side and also from the community angle. So they've really been champions from the youth and the community angle for us and the journey has been great. We are going to do more things this year definitely and the conversations have begun so that now in the year you will see more and more things rolling out between the us and Dandora hip hop city with regards to waste management initiative. Late last year we actually launched the plastic action plan for the country. And this is part of what we want to involve groups such as Dandora hip hop city. We've actually even worked with people like Miss Koch Kenya this is in Korogosho and what Miss Koch does is that she trains young people she trains models. I don't know if you've heard of Miss Koch but she's probably one of the phenomenal people you should have on your show. So she trains young people to see value in themselves. She has a modeling school in Korogosho where she brings young girls and educates them about keeping themselves safe, about not joining in crime, about doing something beneficial and substantial with their lives. And she's also one of the people that we've approached to work with her community and the youth that she's reaching out to in terms of waste management. So these are some of the initiatives that we want to roll out in 2020. Yeah, as we concluded before you tell me the challenges you have been facing maybe I would want us to get clearly what it is that the KEM now does to such community groups. That particular thing that you do because yes you have partnered but what is it that you bring on board? Yeah so what we bring on board is the partnership of some of our members you know some of the guys who produce the goods that are used by citizens in this country for them to know how to what we call the take back scheme. How this waste gets back to them. So some of our members have now educated the youth groups and told them ok if you collect or rather they have kind of demonstrated the ways in which a good collection can then get back to them as producers and enable them to reuse or recycle or remake into something else. So the thing that we've done is as Kenya Association of Manufacturers is bring these youth groups together with our members who make these things, who will then make the collection process an initiative economically beneficial to the youth groups. Alright. Yes. That's awesome. Yes. So with the partnership and the journey that you've had with these groups and specifically the Dandora Hypop City. What are some of the challenges that you've been facing and maybe how did you address them or how are you looking forward into addressing them? Maybe the main challenge I can say is the awareness is the education because we as you say it's something that needs to be addressed quickly but raising awareness and getting people to change their behavior is totally different. So I will tell you I'll do a public service announcement, I'll do an event but then at the end of the day you still go to your matatu and when you're finished with your yoga to throw it outside. So maybe that's some of the challenges that we are facing is the change of behavior is going to take time. But we are hopeful that as I say in 10 years time we want to see a difference and we are hopeful that what we are talking about in terms of our initiative will have reached a huge part of the population and we'll see a change in terms of the habits of people in terms of waste disposal. So we are hoping to see that change and that the other thing is maybe the policies to help the actors and the players within this value chain of waste management. We want to see stronger, more sustainable policies for example that will help the waste collection business be a profitable business. So that's somebody, there's usually stigma around waste collection. So somebody is thinking it's a dirty job, I don't want to do it. So if you make the dirty job profitable, if you make something like that profitable it's no longer dirty and then people can come and invest. Investors can invest in plants that help to make this work less unhygienic, less cumbersome. So that now it becomes actually something somebody is proud of saying actually I'm part of the waste collector's business, this is what I do, I collect waste. We actually have somebody in Dandora who's doing that right now. But if we have stronger policies as a country so that it makes investments in this areas worthwhile then people come and build plants and put up machines and then this job is not seen as cumbersome as it usually is then it makes it worthwhile. So that's probably also something that we would like to see a change in going forward. Alright. I am giving an opportunity that will be a camera. You speak to our audience and they maybe tell us what we are expecting as far as waste management is of concern and the body that is Kenya Association of Manufacturers. So Kenya Association of Manufacturers launched the Kenya Plastics Action Plan end of 2019 and this is what we want to roll out in 2020. As Kenyans what you can do is help us, you can go on our website and get download the Kenya Plastics Action Plan and read it. But you can also help us in little ways by segregating in your own homes seeing if you can collect, start with something small plastic bottles, collect your plastic bottles separately from any other waste so that this plastic bottles are able to be recycled and we can make something valuable out of it. You can also assist by depositing or disposing waste in the places that are designated for waste disposal. So instead of throwing things out of your matatu or out of your car you actually look for a bill and you deposit your waste bear responsibly. So we have a slogan we say trash right recycle right. If you are able to trash right we will be able to recycle right as Kenya Association of Manufacturers. That's a very awesome you trash right. Okay thank you so much for coming and sharing all these ideas. I'm sure someone back home have learnt something. Thank you so much and we are wishing you the very best even in the partnership you are looking forward to the Iraq B Association. Thank you so much for coming and have a very good day. Back home many thank you. Thanks for keeping us company. Anisha has been my guest Sally Kayu ahead of PR and Communication with the Kenya Association of Manufacturers. Stay tuned. The bar remote will be here in the next segment. My name is Dereva Hillary. See you later.