Wale Jagun
Managing Director, Ifedolapo Runsewe (fourth from left), Chairman of the Board, Mrs Gladys Quist-Adebiyi (third from right) and other partners at the unveiling of the new company, FREEE Recycle Limited
FREEE Recycle Limited, a tyre waste recycling company, has announced plans to expand its eco-friendly rubber manufacturing industry across Africa to tackle waste management challenges.
The Managing Director, FREEE Recycle, Mrs Ifedolapo Runsewe, made this known at the company’s name change ceremony on Wednesday in Lagos.
FREEE Recycle Ltd. is a waste recycling and rubber manufacturing company.
The aim of the company is to reduce the number of scrap tyres by turning them into reusable, eco-friendly rubber products such as tiles and mats for residential and commercial uses.
Runsewe said that the company’s new recycling plan would tackle challenges such as unemployment, environmental pollution, carbon emission and general environmental sustainability in alignment with the sustainable development goals.
She added that the company’s activities had resulted in the prevention of over 1,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions and an estimated 1,980 malaria-related mortalities while creating an entire value chain of operations.
“As a pioneer player in the tyre waste recycling industry in Nigeria, we task ourselves with developing an innovative, operational structure and a strategic plan that would meet our stakeholders’ and customers needs, product quality, and profitability aspirations.
“We actively contribute to the reduction of environmental pollution caused by inappropriate disposal of waste and we create economic value in Nigeria.
“Our recycling operation has a direct impact on the environment through the prevention of CO2 emission from burning discarded tyres and the implied impacts on emissions from landfills.
“We have over 400,000 waste tyres on-site and as of today, we have recycled over 110,000 waste tyres, producing more than 330, 000MT of crumb rubber used in the manufacturing of our rubber products,” she said.
Speaking on the rebranding and restructuring of the company’s name, Runsewe said the move was pertinent to facilitate five-year growth plan and expansion to other African countries.
“To implement our growth plans, we restructured our organisation via a holding company in the United Kingdom (UK).
“The Holding company in the UK, FREEE Recycle Holding Company Ltd. (UK), will be the vehicle to facilitate our investments and expansion into other African countries,” she said.
She added that the company, through the FREEE franchise programme, planned to expand its recycling and manufacturing operations into other African countries including Ghana, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt.
Runsewe said that the company had begun initiatives such as the Extended Consumer Responsibility Programme (ECR) and the Extended Producer Responsibility Programme (EPRP), aimed at growing profitability and improving the value chain.
“The ECR programme involves partnering with users of tyres, both corporate and individuals, to responsibly dispose of their used tyres.
“Through our EPRP, we invite producers of tyres globally to increase their efforts at environmental responsibility by ensuring that an end-of-life plan is created for the tyres they produce.
“We are currently in engagements with Michellin and the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) for this programme.
“We are very excited to get started on the next phase of our incredible journey to driving Africa’s growth by making end-to-end waste recycling and manufacturing services accessible to other African Businesses.
Mr Jean-Marc Ricca, Managing Director, BASF West Africa, emphasised the need for cross-industry collaboration to tackle waste management and enhance recycling in Nigeria.
“Lagos generates over 830,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year that are not being commercially valued, thereby leading to waste of tremendous amount of resources available.
“Therefore, investing in technology and collaborative innovation is critical because there are people with suitable concepts and the ability to utilise these resources to make them thrive commercially,” he said.
Also speaking, the Board Chairman, Mrs Gladys Quist-Adebiyi, assured of the company’s commitment to providing innovative solutions to combat climate change and waste management issues while creating business value.
“Since operations began, we have been committed to providing innovative solutions to environmental issues by creating value through sustainable manufacturing rubber products.
“By collecting discarded tyres we offer our sustainable solution to a global problem adding to global efforts of combating climate change and reducing the volume of waste being sent to landfills.
“FREEE Recycle is committed to conducting business using high standards of governance, ethics, integrity and creating value for all stakeholders.
Mr Michael Oye, the Regional Manager, South-West Operations, Bank of Industry (BoI), said that the bank was committed to providing financing solutions to sustainable businesses.
“As part of its financing services, BoI is always looking to support sustainable businesses, especially those that help to reduce negative impacts on the economy and the environment.
“One of such businesses that BoI is financing is FREEE Recycle and we are proud of what they have achieved so far.
“We recently launched our waste management financing programme for companies that are into converting waste to wealth with a flexible long-term loan tenure that will support them in acquiring the necessary tools and equipment to work effectively and achieve their goals,” he said.
The company formerly known as Freetow0n Waste Management Recycling Ltd.changed to “FREEE Recycle Ltd.”
