Thanks to Italy comes good news for Kenya's environment and its enslavement by plastic in the territory and the import of plastics from abroad.
The Italian company Montello S.p.A, a leader in Europe in the recycling of plastic and organic waste, enters the African market with a joint venture together with the Kenyan company 'Pure Planet Recyclers', thanks to the E4Impact business accelerator of the Cattolica University of Milan.

The agreement led to the establishment of Pura Terra Recyclers, set up with the aim of recovering plastic waste so as to decrease its presence in the environment and reduce Kenya's dependence on the import of plastic from abroad.
The Bergamo-based company will provide the new company with its technological expertise, global vision and the financial resources necessary to create and support Pura Terra Recycling's growth. Montello, in fact, boasts a significant waste management record of over one million tonnes of waste per year, of which 350,000 tonnes is plastic waste.

On the African side, however, Pure Planet Recyclers will share its business and resources, local knowledge, relationships and the entrepreneurial skills of founder and director Richard Kainika. Specifically, the Kenyan company deals with plastic recycling and, despite still being relatively small, already has significant visibility in the waste management sector.

The aim of the agreement between the two companies is to establish relationships with other recycling companies, which are part of the E4Impact network in Kenya and neighbouring countries, in order to create a hub dedicated to plastic waste management, with companies capable of operating at different stages of the entire supply chain. The aim of Pura Terra Recycling is to grow already in the very short term and aims by 2024 to increase both collection and production volumes - doubling them in one year, quadrupling them in two and so on - in order to improve the entire recycling process, transforming the collected plastic waste into granules with which to make new products and second-life plastic artefacts. Pura Terra Recycling will also have a positive impact in terms of employment: in fact, new skilled jobs will be created, with a few dozen hires planned already in the first year of operation.

"We will put our experience at the disposal of the new company with the aim of increasing the share of waste collected, transforming it into second-life plastic, and reducing Kenya's dependence on the import of plastic raw material from abroad," said Montello's founder and president, Roberto Sancinelli.

Against this backdrop, Kenya is positioning itself as a trailblazer on recycling for other African countries: first by successfully banning plastic bags and then by creating the Sustainable Waste Management Act, a network of collection centres implemented with the issuance of the first separate waste collection law in summer 2022. More recently, it has instead started formalising contracts under which producers of plastic packaging will pay a fee for their recycling.

 "In coherence with its mission and history, E4Impact collaborates in multilateral projects to foster Africa's economic, social and environmental development by focusing its project role on impact entrepreneurship in various sectors, including waste management," explains Mario Molteni, CEO of E4Impact Foundation. "Plastic recycling is a particularly important issue on the African continent, which suffers from heavy pollution generated by plastic waste and still imports all the material from abroad, burdening the country's economy. This is why we are happy to have contributed to the birth of this Joint Venture with Montello SpA, an internationally renowned reality in recycling management, a partner that joined our Foundation last year and whose collaboration establishes a concrete commitment to the development of the circular economy and the employment growth of the African population".