Your Dreams are Valid
- Technology
Lorna Ruto is an inspirational leader and pacesetter who has a track record of achieving outstanding results whether at corporate or community level. She holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree in Accounting and various Certificates in Entrepreneurship. She dreams of a world where everyone has access to basic amenities such as food, water, shelter, security and environment. Born in Kaptembwa Slums in Kenya, her childhood experience was of extreme poverty, rotting waste in her surrounding, clogged sewers, criminal activities and unemployment. As a hobby, she would melt plastic litter in school, make ornaments and sell to other pupils for some little money.
After graduating in commerce with difficulties,she got a well paying job at a bank but she resigned because it was not fulfilling. She's passionate about eradicating the poverty by creating job opportunities for the poor marginalized Kenyans. She took the entrepreneurial plunge and conceived Ecopost in 2009, a business that utilizes waste plastic to manufacture plastic lumber and posts which provides an alternative to timber.
So far she has created over 300 jobs, generated $USD 120,000 in revenue in a year, saved over 250 acres of forests and withdrawn over 1,000,000 kg of plastic waste from the environment. She is the 2011 Sub-Saharan Africa Cartier Laureate. She won the 2010 Bid Network Nature Challenge Award, 2010 SEED Award and the 2009 Enablis Business Award.
She conceived the idea so that their would be poverty reduction by creating over 300 jobs to the youth and women who are marginalized and she also hopes that the business model will create over 100,000 jobs in the next 15 years.The venture has enabled elimination of over 1,000,000 Kgs of waste from the environment, sold over 20,000 posts thus saving over 250 Acres of forest and made over $USD 120,000 in revenue.
She is the co-founder of ASI and had before worked for 2 years at Imperial bank in Kenya before co-founding EcoPost. She quit her job due to her passion for the environment and creation of employment to others who couldn't easily find jobs. Her passion towards her job has led to its success.
Her entreprise vision is “To Transform Africa’s Waste into Wealth”. They use waste plastic as a resource to manufacture aesthetic,durable (rot and termite resistance), easy to use and environmentally friendly plastic lumber.
Their aim is to create a sustainable solution to the growing plastic waste menace, provide a suitable alternative material so that their will be reduction in the cutting down of trees and create job opportunities to reduce poverty.
Through recycling they convert an otherwise waste product into a myriad of useful products. Since 2010 we have withdrawn over 1 million kgs of plastic from the environment. Having sold 10,000+ posts and generated over US$ 80,000 in revenues, the approach offers a viable and sustainable solution to tackling the plastic menace.
By providing an alternative to timber they conserve forests and maintaining them as water catchments areas. Forests act as carbon sinks by removing CO2 from the atmosphere hence mitigating climate change. Having withdrawn and utilize 1 million kgs of plastic, we’ve saved around 250 Acres of forest.
Reference : unreasonableinstitute.org