Ruth Mutonyi is a single mother who has decided to venture into disposable plastic material collection to earn a living.
According to Ms Mutonyi, she decided to join this business after the failure of her first business, a retail shop.
“I hail from Mbale district and I found it hard to go back and do nothing in the village after the collapse of my business,” Mutonyi said, adding that she started her current business with Shs50, 000, used for labour and transport.
According to Ms Mutonyi, one of the challenges she faced with the new venture was to locate an appropriate area to act as a collection centre for the disposed bottles.
She says at the beginning she used to collect 50 sacks of plastic bottles and transport them to a nearby factory called Rwenzori Plastic Cycling.
“Due to a high demand of plastic material and good price (Shs500 a kilo) offered by the factory then, I would earn Shs500,000 per collection making the business more lucrative for me since I had no taxes to pay,” she says.
Ms Mutonyi also says they (suppliers) were being encouraged by the government (NEMA) to carry out the ‘environment-friendly activity’.
Speaking of her achievements, Ms Mutonyi says she has been able to pay school fees for her four children in secondary school, and to also cater for her in the village.
However, not all that glitters is gold, so the adage goes.
So, Ms Mutonyi has to move long distances in search of the disposed plastic bottles, while at the same time fighting off stiff competition from her ‘business rivals’ who also scour all places in search of the disposed plastic bottles.
She also says there is limited market now because some companies have closed shop; she faces transport constraints and declining prices, with a kilo now going for Shs300.
“Sometimes we are forced to pay bribes to those weighing at the factory so as to get the actual weight,” Ms Mutonyi says.
In future she hopes to expand her business, to surpass the current collection of five sacks a day.
