Olamide Ayeni is the founder/CEO of Pearl Recycling, a leading waste upcycling company in Nigeria.

Pearl Recycling is a social enterprise using waste as a resource to solve the problem of unemployment and poverty. The mission is to reduce environmental waste pollution and empower people with the vocational skills needed to use waste as a resource by working with tyre waste, converting them to furniture and green solutions.

The Genesis

Olamide says, she had a trip to Dubai in 2012 where she walked into a mall to buy some personal home items. After buying them, she realised they were made from waste and also imported into Dubai from Sri Lanka.

Her first reaction was anger because they actually cost a lot but she also remembered that “we have a lot of waste in Nigeria that can be used as a resource to create similar eco-friendly products so I started researching pressing waste issues and easily replicable solutions that can be made from these wastes.

“Due to market analysis and research, I decided to focus on producing furniture and green parks from waste and that was how we started.

Motivation

She said, she was impressed with the creative artistry of the items she bought from Dubai, even though on one part, she was disappointed that she had to spend so much on a material made from waste but from then, saw the same opportunity in the Nigeria waste sector.

“I realised that just like the products were imported into Dubai from Sri Lanka, we can also export ours and that was what motivated me to start. I was working for a multinational up until when I started Pearl Recycling and I had to resign and focus solely on building Pearl Recycling,” she pointed out.

Business Lucrativity

To her, “the waste industry is impact-driven. It is where the word ‘People before Profit’ comes to the fore. Being a social enterprise focused on solving pressing issues, the first force that drives us is impact and this majorly is unquantifiable.

“However, the products and services are sold with a sustainability mindset whereby the business runs itself without any recourse to crowdfunding or donations. I would say for six years now, we have run a comfortably sustainable business and we look forward to increasing both our impact and profit.”

Challenges

The major challenge, she highlighted is a cultural stereotype that makes people believe that waste is wasted and should not be reused.

However, she said: “we have been able to continue with sensitization and awareness creation to reduce the stigmatization against waste reuse and also create more community change-makers to reach more audiences.

“Another issue is capital for expansion because we run a self-sustaining business and this means the growth rate is a bit slow compared to when businesses have access to funds and capital for expansion.”

Advice To Investors

“Start with what you have and where you are. There is never a better time to start than now. The first idea is not always the finest but the ability to refine and redesign it makes the difference between a growth mindset and a stiff mindset.

Also, remember that you need to believe in yourself before people start believing in you or your solution. Do not self-sabotage yourself,” she emphasised.

Biography

Olamide Ayeni is the founder/CEO of Pearl Recycling, a leading waste upcycling company in Nigeria.

Olamide holds a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech Hons) in Computer Engineering from the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology. Additionally, she has a postgraduate certificate in circular economy and waste, from Dresden University of Technology, Germany (Technische Universität Dresden).

In 2016, she founded Pearl Recycling, a social enterprise creatively solving the problem of waste in Nigeria, same year she was selected as a Tony Elumelu entrepreneur and also won the WIMBIZ impact competition award.

In 2017, she was named a TechWomen emerging leader by the United States Department of States which allowed her to intern with Symantec in Silicon Valley, USA.

She was selected as an entrepreneur of repute to attend World Entrepreneur Investment Forum in Bahrain in 2017, the same year she was selected as a LEAP Africa social innovator and won the award of the most outstanding social innovator in 2018.

Olamide was named by the Obama Foundation as an Obama African Leader in 2018 and selected for Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2019.

In 2022, she was selected as the Social and Innovator Business Camp (SIBC) laureate by the French Development Agency.

Her organisation, Pearl Recycling has been featured in over thirty countries; with interviews aired in several media outlets including Yahoo News, LinkedIn, Washington Post, Reuters, Financial Times, Aljazeera and many others.