Announced on May 11, Nigerian plastic waste recycling start-up Kaltani raised $4m in seed funding to scale up its recycling activities across the country. The cleantech start-up hopes to tackle Africa’s growing plastic waste problem by promoting the circular economy and recycling. 

Founded by Engineer Obi Charles Nnanna, Kaltani has a team of 100 working across its collection centres, recycling factory and offices, collecting plastic waste transported to its collection centres. The plastics are processed and taken to the factory where they are converted into hot washed PET flakes, and PE and PP pellets which are then sold to FMCG companies for thermoform, sheet, packaging, bottling and fiber applications.

The technology uses data analytics and geo-mapping trace its value chain and ensure transparency.

The start-up will use the funds to open 20 new collection and aggregation sites across Nigeria and increase its staff to over 500. These plans will help the cleantech company significantly increase its capacity, enabling the company to recycle up to 15,000 tonnes of plastic waste per annum. 

“The world has a plastic pollution crisis. Plastic waste is an environmental disaster causing environmental degradation to our oceans, aquatic life, the air we breathe and our health. With the amount of plastic waste produced set to continue skyrocketing, the world desperately needs actionable and scalable solutions.

“At Kaltani, we have already proven that our solution and model works effectively and efficiently with a thorough A-Z value chain solution, and we are beyond excited to commence our expansion into other parts of Nigeria,” said Nnanna.