15/09/2026
I sometimes think back to the beginning of this journey, when e-waste still felt like discovering treasure.
I came from a family that didn’t always have the newest technology. My parents were fairly anti-establishment, wary of “the system”, and by default often wary of new technology too.
So when I first started seeing what people and businesses were throwing away, I was fascinated.
Computers. Components. Circuit boards. Equipment that somebody had decided had reached the end of its life, but which clearly still contained value.
In those early days the business was informal, my personal expenses were negligible, and survival didn’t require much. We could operate comfortably on less than R30,000 in monthly revenue.
Today, we need more than ten times that just to keep the lights on.
Figuratively speaking, of course. We invested in solar. 😄
But that one comparison probably sums up the journey of growing a business better than almost anything else.
As the business grew, so did everything around it.
More staff.
More vehicles.
More fuel.
More insurance.
More premises.
More compliance.
More equipment.
More technology.
More responsibility.
And somewhere along the way you realise something about this industry:
Efficiency doesn't necessarily make the mountain smaller.
Sometimes it simply allows you to climb a much bigger mountain.
The years between then and now have brought incredible highs and some very difficult lows.
COVID.
Civil unrest.
Floods.
Break-ins.
Economic downturns.
Commodity fluctuations.
Changing technology.
Changing regulations.
Changing downstream markets.
Clients moving suppliers.
Employees you invest heavily in who sometimes disappoint you.
Vendors who don't always play fair.
Equipment that was valuable yesterday becoming undesirable tomorrow.
And the strange thing about running a business is that sometimes you feel an economic downturn weeks or even months before people start talking about it publicly.
Other times, chaos is happening everywhere and somehow your business keeps moving forward.
The WEEE sector has an extraordinary resilience to it because beneath the commercial side there is something very real:
Purpose.
There is value in what society throws away.
There is economic value, environmental value, social value, employment value and, increasingly, technological value.
But extracting that value responsibly requires scale.
And scale costs money.
That is one of the realities I think people outside this industry don't always see.
You can have a few exceptional months where you comfortably exceed break-even, but there can also be long dry seasons where you are constantly pushing against it.
More than half the battle is simply maintaining enough momentum to keep the machine moving.
Which is also why I believe EPR has such an important role in creating a truly sustainable WEEE economy.
It isn't there to magically carry the business.
In reality, it may only represent a small piece of the overall financial picture.
But sometimes that small piece is incredibly important.
It can be the difference that absorbs an unexpected cost.
It can help fund better processing technology.
It can provide working capital to purchase material.
It can support infrastructure, compliance and employment.
And ultimately it allows responsible recyclers to keep investing in doing things better.
Over the years we have also learnt that recycling itself isn't enough.
We have developed our own internal software and SaaS systems.
We have invested in better processing infrastructure.
We have built partnerships with organisations and individuals who add value to different parts of the recovery chain.
We have expanded into refurbishment and reuse.
And we continue looking for ways of extracting more value from what was once simply classified as waste.
But perhaps the hardest part of growing a business is something nobody puts on a spreadsheet.
Keeping that spark in your eyes.
That excitement you had in the beginning.
When every collection was interesting.
Every piece of equipment had potential.
Every new client felt like a milestone.
Every opportunity seemed enormous.
Growth changes that.
Responsibility changes that.
Pressure changes that.
You start carrying salaries, families, contracts, buildings, vehicles, compliance obligations and the consequences of every decision you make.
The trick, I think, is learning how to carry all of that without losing the person who was fascinated by the opportunity in the first place.
You learn to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The right employees from the wrong ones.
The right clients from the wrong ones.
The right vendors from the wrong ones.
The opportunities worth pursuing from the distractions.
And after all of that, the reality may still be that some months you simply break even.
But I have also learnt that success isn't always measured by what happened this month.
Sometimes success is surviving long enough to build what you originally imagined.
I have an immense faith in God and believe that the paths placed before us are there for a reason.
Our responsibility is to walk them with diligence, steadfastness and a will of gold.
There will always be another obstacle.
Another regulation.
Another downturn.
Another unexpected bill.
Another mountain.
But there will also be another opportunity.
Another partnership.
Another innovation.
Another person worth investing in.
Another piece of technology somebody called waste that still has an incredible amount of value left in it.
And perhaps that is why, after all these years, I still love this industry.
The spark may not always shine as brightly as it did in the beginning.
But it is still there.
Best Regards
Jami Nash
