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Waste is usually framed purely as a problem in conversations about Mwiki's environment — something to be collected, cleared, or prevented. But in many communities facing similar challenges, waste has also become a source of income, through recycling, upcycling, and small green enterprises. As One Vision CBO continues building out the Mwiki Environmental Sustainability & Green Spaces Project, exploring this opportunity side of the equation is a natural next step.
What Recyclable Materials Already Move Through Mwiki
Even without formal recycling infrastructure, informal collectors and small traders already move plastic bottles, scrap metal, and cardboard out of Mwiki toward buyers and recycling plants elsewhere in Nairobi. This existing informal economy is a starting point rather than something to build from scratch — the raw material flow and basic market already exist; what's often missing is better organisation, fairer pricing for collectors, and safer working conditions.
The Case for Organised Collection Groups
Individual waste pickers, working alone, typically have little bargaining power with buyers and bear all the risk of collection with none of the efficiency that comes from organised, larger-scale sorting and sale. A collection group, organised similarly to our table banking model, could pool collected materials, negotiate better prices as a group, and share the proceeds more fairly among members — turning informal, precarious work into something closer to a structured small enterprise.
Upcycling as a Creative and Vocational Opportunity
Beyond raw material recycling, there's a growing market — locally and increasingly online — for upcycled products made from waste materials: bags and accessories from plastic packaging, furniture and decor from repurposed wood and metal. This kind of work pairs naturally with the creative and vocational skills already being built through our Youth Digital Skills & Vocational Training Programme, particularly for graduates interested in a hands-on, entrepreneurial path.
What Would Need to Happen Next
Turning this potential into a functioning green livelihoods programme would require more than good intentions — proper safety training for anyone handling waste materials, reliable links to buyers willing to pay fair prices, and probably a pilot cohort to test what actually works in Mwiki's specific market before scaling. We're actively exploring partnerships that could help fund and structure a pilot along these lines.
Learning From Recycling Models Elsewhere in Nairobi
We haven't approached this idea in isolation — our team has looked at how organised waste-picker cooperatives and recycling initiatives have developed in other parts of Nairobi, learning both from their successes and from the specific challenges they've faced around fair pricing, safety standards, and maintaining reliable buyer relationships over time.
These lessons suggest that starting small, with a pilot group of committed collectors rather than attempting a large-scale launch immediately, gives a new initiative the best chance to work out practical challenges — sorting logistics, storage space, transport to buyers — before scaling to include more of Mwiki's existing informal waste collectors.
The Safety Standards We Consider Non-Negotiable
Whatever form a future recycling initiative eventually takes, certain safety standards are non-negotiable in our planning — proper protective equipment for anyone handling waste materials directly, clear protocols for materials that pose particular health risks, and realistic limits on the physical demands placed on collectors. An initiative that generates income at the cost of collectors' health and safety would represent a failure of the very people it's meant to benefit.
We're deliberately building these standards into our planning from the earliest pilot stage, rather than treating safety as something to formalise only once the initiative has already scaled.
An Idea Still Taking Shape
We want to be transparent that this remains an idea in active development rather than a fully operational programme today. We're sharing our thinking publicly at this stage precisely because we believe potential partners, funders, or even interested waste collectors themselves might have valuable input that shapes a better pilot design than we could develop in isolation.
We're sharing this idea publicly, in an unfinished state, because we believe the best version of this initiative will come from combining our own research with direct input from the very waste collectors and traders who understand Mwiki's informal recycling economy far better than we currently do. If you're involved in this space already, formally or informally, we would genuinely value a conversation before we finalise any pilot design.
We think it's important to be upfront that ideas like this one sometimes take longer to develop into a working programme than more straightforward projects like a single water point or training cohort, simply because they depend on external market relationships and safety standards that need careful, deliberate design. We'd rather take that extra time and get the foundation right than launch a rushed pilot that puts collectors at risk or collapses within its first few months.
If your organisation works in recycling, waste management, or green enterprise and would be interested in a pilot partnership with One Vision CBO, we'd like to hear from you at info@onevisioncbo.site or +254 798 200890. We'll share updates on this idea's development through our News page as our thinking and any potential partnerships mature, and we welcome ongoing input from anyone with relevant experience in this space in the meantime.