Greening the Future Baling out the community
Khensha Mills Innovations for Climate Change Adaptation
Ke n n e t h N e t s h i o mb o was faced with two problems: scrap steel and soil erosion. “I bought a baling machine last year,” says the recycling entrepreneur from his office at Khensha Mills, in rural Limpopo.
“The original idea was to compact tins and cans for recycling, which I’m still doing with aluminium, but the price of steel is now very low, so I said to myself, ‘what can I do with all these cans and unrecyclable scrap?’ ”
Simultaneously, like many in the community, his land became a wasteland with dire soil erosion problems post the 2015 floods.
“I looked at these problems and thought ‘now what can I do?’” he adds.
The solution? To bale the steel cans and unrecyclable scrap into huge brick-like structures that can be planted as erosion barriers to counteract flood damage.
“The idea is to put the barriers up so when you level it with other sand you can still plant mielies. The land can still be arable.”
The project, based at Xigalo Village, about 20km east of Thohoyandou in the Thulamela Municipality of the Vhembe District in Limpopo, is deep in a rural setting where people mostly depend on small-scale subsistence farming.
And while his innovative soil erosion solution is still mostly a personal project, Netshiombo is confident that once the community sees the success of his counter-erosion strategy they’ll be eager to implement it themselves.
“Under normal circumstances one would expect the local authorities to attend to the soil erosion immediately and to seek remedies as a way of rehabilitating the affected land,” he says. “In the absence of such intervention I decided to take the initiative myself. When the community realises there is a solution I’ll welcome them to bring in their scrap and steel and only charge a nominal fee for baling.”
Founded in 2008, Khensha Mills is a successful recycling business collecting recyclables in Limpopo and transporting them to Gauteng for processing.