Kenya’s largest fish farm dubbed Victory Farms has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a recycling company in its efforts to manage plastic wastes.
The partnership which is indefinite will see the fish farm selling its plastic wastes to Mr. Green Africa who in turn will recycle the wastes into other usable products.
The company has a target of one million tonnes of plastic wastes but currently it is only able to collect 600 metric tonnes monthly.
Ntekerei Saruni, the farm’s Operations Director said the organization entered into the partnership to protect the environment through effective management of plastic wastes.
“We are launching a partnership to manage our wastes. Overtime, it has become a problem for us as a farm to manage wastes, especially plastic. We got into this partnership with Mr. Green in our endeavor to protect the environment and manage our wastes responsibly,” Saruni stated.
These sentiments were also echoed by the Circular Economy Manager, Brian Akello who reiterated that it was their responsibility to ensure the environment is safe from their aquaculture activities.
“This partnership is meant to enable Victory Farms to sell its plastic wastes to the organization which in turn will recycle the plastics for reuse. Our ultimate goal is to ensure our environment is clean from wastes that emanate from our activities in this region,” he said.
“We generate wastes on a daily basis and we have a responsibility to protect our environment, so this will be a long-term partnership. Through this, the environment will be protected from pollution that may cause more harm to it and its inhabitants,” Akello added.
Speaking on Wednesday at the farm in Suba South Sub-County, the manager said that the plastic wastes are in the form of barrels which are used to float the cages in the lake.
“When the barrels are worn out, we remove them and cut into halves where we use them to carry fish from cages to the processing unit, but they tend to depreciate overtime and that is when Mr. Green comes in to take them for crushing and recycling to produce other products,” said Akello.
The Regional Sourcing Coordinator Mr. Green Western Nyanza region, James Okoth was looking forward to working with the farm, saying that it was a privilege to work with the farm.
“It’s a pleasure to work with the farm in managing its plastic wastes. For them they are just wastes but to us, as Mr. Green it is more than that because it is what we major in. We are here to transfer the plastics to our factory for recycling,” Okoth stated.
Mr. Green Africa is a tech-enabled recycling company that has hubs in Nairobi and Kisumu and purchases wastes from their direct sourcing agents or small waste pickers mainly the street children.
“Bringing the farm on board is a gain for us as we are able to source more volumes as our capacity to recycle plastic wastes is above board. We are targeting a million tonnes which we are unable to source from the environment and all our key players,” Okoth said.
Apart from recycling of plastic wastes, the organization also undertakes rehabilitation where the street children are taken in and transformed into responsible citizens who are able to provide for their families.
