For the past two years, Recyclobekia has been successful in the collection of e-waste across more than 25 big companies in Egypt.
E-waste is defined as all obsolete or outdated computers, televisions, cell phones, printers, PDAs, and thousands of other devices commonly used in offices, homes, and by people on the go. The global technological revolution is fueling the rapidly increasing e-waste recycling problem.
Now the young startup has now partnered with Rocket Internet’s Jumia in Egypt to focus on the collection of e-waste from individuals. This initiative entails the co-ordination of residential e-waste pickup services in exchange for coupons to use towards the purchase of new items on the online retail site.
The team has to raise awareness in universities and local communities of the importance of recycling electronic devices before launching the project. This service allows users to request e-waste pickup from their location, through the website.
According to Mohamed Sehsah, CTO and Business Developer at Recyclobekia, “Instead of filling your cart and paying for the value of the electric or electronic goods you buy, you still fill the cart but you pay with the value of devices you own as e-waste.”
In a very easy process: individuals go on the site, sign up, and choose from the list of devices accepted as e-waste by Recyclobekia. After submitting the list along with their exact address, a representative contacts the user to set up a check-up and pick-up date.
“A car battery for example is worth 280 points, and a laptop around 180 points; when a user reaches 800 points they get a voucher worth 100 EGP [around $14.50 USD],” says Sehsah. While this might seem like a small amount, it’s more than people get by throwing their old electronics in the trash.
Recyclobekia established a partnership with Resala, an Egyptian charity organization based in Cairo, to organize the assessment and pick-up of the goods. Resala representatives are trained by Recyclobekia ahead of time to evaluate the devices and report back with the points they are worth, for team members to add them to users’ accounts. “We decided to work with Resala as we want to support charity and help users by paying them for their efforts,” says Sehsah.
