The question is: why should we sell the plastic to other people for them to make furniture when we can do it ourselves? Proplast’s core business is still selling the recycled raw material. But we don’t want to stand still – we want to evolve and develop the company. So, we started using thermocompression to turn the plastic granules into panels for making furniture as a way of tapping into another market. This allows us to grow and build our business on two pillars.

How exactly does the production process work?

The first stage involves recycling, during which plastic waste is collected, sorted and milled. After that, the granules are washed and dried – and then either sold or used to manufacture furniture. We use the molten plastic panels I mentioned earlier to produce furniture. This means that instead of polluting the environment, something like an old plastic container can be turned into a desk where children can study.

We depend on support and investment from other organisations, particularly to expand our business. Invest for Jobs enabled us to purchase a new CNC machine. We can use this computerised high-precision manufacturing machine to make large volumes of high-quality furniture. It also allows us to produce goods very much faster than by hand, making us more productive and more profitable. We can also now train our staff to use this new technology. The support from Invest for Jobs was important here – because as the name says, they invest in jobs. Without this support, we would not have been so successful because we wouldn’t have been able to invest as necessary, and our staff would not have had the technical expertise.

In what other ways has your company benefited from this cooperation?

A growing business needs more employees. The support from Invest for Jobs alone has helped us create around 60 new jobs. Proplast now employs about 110 people, more than half of them women. However, the company still has a lots of potential for development. We hope to create another 250 jobs.

Where do you see your company in five years?

Our mission has only just begun. We want to create more than 360 jobs at Proplast over the next five years and aim to become the leading plastics recycler in Senegal, so we will soon be opening a new site. Invest for Jobs has provided an expert to help us develop this site. He is advising us on the best way to develop the site and how new spaces for plastic processing, warehouses and unloading platforms for the plastic waste need to be built to optimise workflows and guarantee the highest quality and safety standards.