Alex Rose-Innes
With women entrepreneurs driving sustainable waste management on the African continent, this sector is growing by leaps and bounds. While creating jobs and addressing unemployment and poverty, a new generation of eco-entrepreneurs is also raised up.
Sinah Mojanko of TiyAmo Recycling in South Africa, not only takes the future of the planet seriously, but also her role as coach to young recycling entrepreneurs. Sinah’s vision for a better future includes everyone from all walks of life to provide food for their families.
Tiyamo Recycling started off with four staff members in 2019 and by recycling all types of plastic waste and plastic bottles, white paper, cardboard boxes, tins and scrap metals, had become the mainstay for many unskilled and jobless in the country, which now has more than seven million people with no sustainable income.
While working at one of South Africa’s leading financial institutions, this enterprising woman saw the ravaging effects of drug use as the jobless had no hope of a better tomorrow. Sinah and her husband, who also tried his hand at entrepreneurship realised that they had to make a difference and Tiyamo Recycling was born. Today, the business is growing from strength to strength while at the same time providing for the needs of many families with no other income and keeping the environment clean.
Sinah is no stranger to ensuring an extra income with her entrepreneurial spirit already showing its mettle as a child. Her life path continued to push her further along this trajectory as even during her corporate stint, she was active in the Small Business Development section, meeting and assisting entrepreneurs. The die was cast when she met her husband, another entrepreneur.
As Tiyamo Recycling grows, the plan is to own a proper recycling plant which could export to other countries as well. And as always, at the heart of this organisation, the youth of today would become the eco-entrepreneurs of tomorrow under the able hand of Sinah Mojanko.
