JD Recycling specialises in converting vehicles’ used tyres to furniture, interior decors and playground items. Its founder/Managing Director, Ayodele Olaide Adeyemi, ditched her career in banking and turned to waste recycling to feed her passion for furniture making. Today, she has 26 employees on her payroll and rakes in over N10 million from the business yearly. The banker-turned entrepreneur says Nigeria’s huge, but largely untapped waste recycling market is capable of dislodging oil, if fully exploited.
The exudes the confidence of an entrepreneur schooled in the dynamics of the industry she operates in. So, when the founder/Managing Director of JD Recycling, a company specialising in converting vehicles’used tyres to furniture, interior decors and playground items, Ayodele Olaide Adeyemi, said waste recycling is Nigeria’s next oil, she spoke from her vantage position as a knowledgeable industry operator.
According to Ayodele, who, on her own volition, resigned from her banking job to pursue her passion for waste recycling, the market for recycling and waste conversion is huge and lucrative, and with more people becoming aware of the business as a money spinner, “I see recycling/waste conversion as the next oil business if people can open their eyes to it.”
Ayodele’s projection was based on her experience in recycling and the successes so far recorded. Indeed, since 2013, when she resigned her job as a banker after working for 10 years and becoming an entrepreneur, JD Recycling, which she founded, has been growing.
For instance, the business she started, first as a dry cleaning and later, JD Recycling, which she registered in 2017, employs 26 workers. She also makes over N10 million yearly, even as plans are afoot to expand the business by establishing a minimum of six branches in five years.
For Ayodele, furniture making was home coming and a dream come true. This is because her passion has always been to make furniture from recycled waste. “It’s what I love doing; I love making furniture, I love recycling. So, it’s a passion for me, something I love to do,” she told The Nation.
Already, she has even expanded the business from just recycling to regular furniture making. She said she has always known that she is not a career person hence, she only needed the experience she got from her career in banking to launch her own business, be an employer of labour and also provide a source of livelihood to as many people as possible in her own little way.
The story of how Ayodele activated her innate passion for recycling and furniture making is interesting. It all started in 2016 when her Physician, upon confirming her pregnant, left instruction that she should be on bed rest until she put to bed. At that time, her pregnancy was just a month, meaning that for the rest eight months, she wasn’t going to do anything.
“In fact, the medical doctor said even cooking was out of it,” she recalled. But as it turned out, it was during her long period of bed rest that the idea of starting her business was fine-tuned. “I am somebody who doesn’t know how to relax. So, while I was on bed rest, I was still trying to look for something to do.
‘’So, I was discussing with my sister and she said God has actually given you this time to think about what you wanted to do before. So, I was just thinking and I remembered that most times when you go to social events (Owambe) parties and even Lagos State drainages, you see lots of water bottles in the dustbin, on the ground, and in the drainages,” she narrated.
While on bed rest, Ayodele’s creativity and natural inclination for craftsmanship was on full swing. She was contemplating what she could use the discarded plastic bottles to do. Eventually, a research she carried out opened her eyes to various waste materials that could be used or recycled to produce a lot of things.
However, instead of bottle recycling, she said in her research, she saw tyres and fell in love with tyre recycling. “That was how I started,” she said, adding that apart from registering JD Recycling in 2017, with the cleaning business still running, she also used the opportunity of her bed rest to set up her company’s website while at home.
Her first big break in the business came when, while still on bed rest, one of her clients, a man, placed order for 10 different tyre furniture, including tables, chairs and wall decorations. Being her first order, Ayodele said she had to get in touch with her regular carpenter as well as a friend who is knowledgeable about furniture construction.
“That was how we did our first supply,” she said, noting that she and her client were excited by the quality and sheer esthetics of the final products. “I didn’t know such beauty could actually come out of waste. It was a surprise that we were able to do that and since then, we had started and it’s been a wonderful journey, she said, gleefully.
But, before her stint in banking, Ayodele, who studied Accounting in Yaba College of Technology, had worked in the Account Section of Ikoyi Club 1938 for five years. She joined the banking industry in 2003 and worked as a marketer and later, as an operations staff member for 10 years. She, however, resigned from the job in 2013.
Ayodele was one of the 3,000 lucky Nigerian women entrepreneurs that got the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWin) grant by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
The YouWin programme is a private and public initiative that finances outstanding business plans for the young, aspiring entrepreneurs in Nigeria. Ayodele said it was YouWin that actually gave her the confidence to step out of banking and face her cleaning business before veering into recycling.
Since then, there is no stopping the banker-turned entrepreneur. The customer who placed the first order for furniture made from tyres had his virtual office in Lekki, but has since opened another one in Yaba, with JD Recycling also supplying furniture for him too. He also opened another one in Abuja and still retained JD Recycling as his supplier.
About two months ago, the same client also opened another outlet in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, placed another order. Again, it was JD Recycling that made furniture for him. The company has also been making furniture for television stations, individuals and corporates. “People are beginning to realise that there is beauty in waste hence our slogan: “Exhibiting the Beauty in Waste,” Ayodele said.
Encouraged by her achievements in such a remarkably short time, Ayodele has moved a notch higher, venturing into wine bottles also. “We started using wine bottles to make things like flower verses and bottle light. We also use tyres to make chandeliers. A lot of people have been placing requests,” she told The Nation.
Soaring in a male-dominated industry
According to Ayodele, people were surprised when they realised that a woman was spear-heading the innovation. “A lot of people were surprised when they discovered that a woman owns the company. I am the creative manager and also the MD and the founder. So, it’s been a very interesting journey,” she said, noting that although, all her members of staff are men, she is the only woman among them.
Throwing more light on how she manages to cope in such a largely male-dominated industry, Ayodele said: “Sometimes when we are trying to come up with a new product or a new concept, I tell them (furniture makers) this is what we want, how do we achieve it?
“When they are explaining it and I am a little bit confused, they will say madam! you won’t understand. I will say explain it, I will know it; just take it as if you are talking to a primary school child. Sometimes when they want to say something, they will purse; they will feel that I will not understand, but I will say go ahead.”
Another factor that may have been working in her favour is that she works from the comfort of her home, in a three bedroom apartment nestled in very big and a spacious compound in Ojodu area of Lagos. “The beauty of my job is that I work from home. My workshop is in my compoun. So, I am able to manage my family and my work,” she said.
Catching them young
“My dream is also to train children because I believe in catching them young. If they are small and you are able to train and give them a mindset, that’s how you can really change a country,” Ayodele declared. And to give force to such profound declaration, the accountant and recycler has since already kicked off a training programme for children in schools, especially public schools.
The training programme, which was part of JD Recycling’s “Train A Child – Let’s Recycle” initiative, has just been approved to train 32 primary schools in Ikeja Local Government Area of Lagos State. “Once we are done with the 32 schools in Ikeja, we will also approach other local governments too to train the students.
“And it’s not just training them; we also train them on how to change waste into things that they can use. We hope that from there we will be able to get future entrepreneurs who will be interested in the recycling business because it is actually a very big market. So, we are hoping that the more we have more people into recycling the better, especially in the future,” she said
The Nation learnt that under the company’s “Train A Child – Let’s Recycle” initiative, its representatives visit public schools and host a fun and informative one-hour workshop that teaches children all about waste generation, waste management and recycling.
“We improve the livelihood of school children rural areas by donating our uniquely and beautifully made chairs and tables made with used tyres. After all, no one deserves to learn in discomfort. We also train the pupils in such schools how they can make these chairs and tables by themselves so that none would learn in discomfort,” Ayodele stated.
Perhaps, to underscore her resolve to catch them young, her 21-year old son, despite being more interested in photography, is involved in the business, though not fully because he is still studying in University of Lagos (UNILAG). She is also grooming her four-year old daughter to take up a career in waste recycling.
Women, youths also
The company has also been encouraging women whom it believes are influences. Ayodele’s words: “Woman who have no jobs or have no idea of what to do, we organise trainings for them. We bring in other recyclers that use other waste because it’s not everybody that has interest in using tyre as waste.
“There are some other wastes that can be used like the pure water sachet. I have a friend that uses it to make flowers. She also uses old magazines to make flowers. She uses pure water sachet to make foot mat. She is based in Port Harcourt.
“We also train women on how to push their product in the market to get customers, to get clients that can buy it from them because if you are making a product and nobody is buying you will get discouraged.” The company trains women and youths about recycling for as low as N10, 000.
Eyeing the African market
Ayodele said JD Recycling also goes to other African countries to teach them how to make products from waste materials. “Part of what we do is go outside Nigeria to train people. We have been to Togo for youth empowerment. We were there for three days to train the youths there about recycling and how to make some of our products,” she explained.
But for the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, JD Recycling would have also been in Gambia in September, this year. “We couldn’t go to Gambia in September as planned because of the pandemic. We had to put everything on hold until COVID-19 is under control,” she said
Although the company, for now, is in Lagos, it has concluded arrangements to expand its operations to Abuja, for instance. As part of its expansion plan, it has also entered into an international partnership with Thistlerock Enterprises, a Scottish company, as well as DBA Bature Brewery, a company that is into brewery and entertainment.
The partnership with the brewery firm, according to Ayodele, allows JD Recycling put up its showroom in Bature Brewery’s office premises at Etim Inyang Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos.
The company, she added, is also looking at partnering other furniture showrooms so that it can display its array of eye-popping products made from recycled tyres. Already, her products are some of the sought after by individuals, companies, hotels, restaurants, governments, parks, schools etc.
Saving the environment
Although, Ayodele’s foray into recycling was profit-oriented, she, however, said JD Recycling is an environment and human caring company. “We focus on solving climate issues, saving our environment from wastes while at the same time improving people’s lives through what we can create using used tires,” she emphasised.
The budding entrepreneur insisted that waste management should not be left for the government alone; that the private sector has a role to play. Her words: “The government can’t do it alone. There are some things that we private sector operators should be responsible for.”
She said if people are actually concerned about waste, those who said there is no employment and that government is not providing employment would be creating employment.
“In this time and age, you don’t wait for government to provide employment; you look for the job yourself. You become an entrepreneur and then provide the job, and that’s what we have decided to do, employ people,” she stated.
While reiterating that waste recycling is “A big industry,” Ayodele said she is looking forward to bringing a lot of people on board -women, youths, and children. She also said she sees JD Recycling having a minimum of six branches in five years’ time.
