The Paper Packaging Company

Plastic wastes present formidable problems as they are at present not biodegradable, are bulky and can resist incineration. Incineration in fact may not be possible due to production of noxious or toxic fumes. Inadequate levels of recycling aggravate the waste problem. In addition, plastic waste is a major loss of an important commodity.

The non-biodegradable state of these plastic bags make them a huge environmental and health concern, as they possess the ability to cause various health problems such as liver dysfunction and cancer on entry into the body.

In contributing towards building sustainable cities and communities, The Paper Packaging Company provides eco-friendly biodegradable paper packaging, improving the health of the planet and the individuals within.  

In Africa alone, several countries like Tanzania, Rwanda, Gambia have placed a ban on non-biodegradable packaging materials. We see this happening in several places in the world, presenting a huge opportunity for our company.

According to the UN environment, “Researchers estimate more than 8.3 billion tons of plastic has been produced since the early 1950s with about 60% ending up in the natural environment contributing to soil and water pollution.

Our world in data .org states that in 2015, the packaging sector accounted for 146 million tons of plastic produced. This was more than double every other sector utilizing plastic production.

The encyclopedia of world problems and human potential states that in 2017, the world consumed more than 1 million plastic water bottles per minute or roughly 20,000 per second.  Companies such as Coca Cola and Pepsi have captured major market shares but have not taken a large interest in ensuring the plastic bottles (made of PET) are recycled.

The ripple effect of plastic pollution is harmful to humans and animals in the oceans as plastic items are non-biodegradable. Plastic waste – whether in a river, an ocean, or on land – can persist in the environment for centuries. The same properties that make plastics so useful — their durability and resistance to degradation — also make them nearly impossible for nature to completely break down.

Most plastic items never fully disappear; they just get smaller and smaller. Many of these tiny plastic particles are swallowed by farm animals or fish who mistake them for food, and thus can find their way onto our dinner plates. They have also been found in a majority of the world’s tap water. 

By clogging sewers and providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes and pests, plastic waste — especially plastic bags — can increase the transmission of vector-borne diseases like malaria. Many local communities suffer adversely from malaria and such water borne diseases. 

With malaria deaths reaching 445,000 in 2016, according to the WHO, fifteen countries accounted for 80% of all malaria cases globally. Nigeria accounted for the highest proportion of cases globally (27%). As stated earlier, clogged sewers and drainage are a major cause of this. 

We work with indigenous communities, turning the tide on the use of non-biodegradable plastics by showing them the primary effects of these plastics in clogging and then secondary in malaria.

They participate in this solution by making the switch to participate in the purchase of biodegradable paper packaging and advocate for the ban of single-use plastics.

Our solution framework takes a multi-pronged approach in addressing the problem described above;

Firstly, we produce eco-friendly biodegradable paper food packaging at affordable rates, also ensuring our products are able to serve both household and industrial uses. 

We ensure we are offering a complete line of compostable and recyclable paper food packaging solution.

Secondly, we engage in awareness activities, educating individuals on the environmental and health dangers caused by the use of non-biodegradable plastic and nylon packages. We have discovered this to be a crucial portion of our solution framework as lots of individuals are blissfully ignorant on the negative effects these plastics they have bought and used for decades constitute to their health and environment.

Thirdly, we engage in training activities, empowering communities to produce these eco-friendly biodegradable products. We do these because a major part of our core values is to create environmental sustainability, contributing effectively to building sustainable cities and communities.

Asides from leveraging technology in our production components, we drive sales via online and e-commerce platforms, ensuring our products are available to regions beyond our immediate locality.

Our business model heavily takes advantage of digital and communications technology in overcoming the consumer apathy that trails environmental health awareness in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

We are also currently engaging technology that helps us up-cycle daily newspapers into bags to serve an existing broad market of local traders and street sellers. These constitute a major category of Individuals who engage in the proliferation of non-biodegradable plastics, severely harmful to the environment.

 In addition to the paper based food packaging solutions we provide e.g. paper bag, burger boxes, paper food packs etc. we are also working on introducing tote bags to the local markets, convenient stores etc.

Our innovation rests with the market penetration strategy we have engaged, ensuring the on-boarding of local, and hinterland communities often ignored in the campaign of creating a sustainable environment for a sustainable future. 

We introduced the first eco-friendly paper food packaging e-commence website in Nigeria. We have optimized traffic by using google ads sense, sponsored post on facebook and instagram. 

To further create more value and a stream of income for people we have an affiliate program where you refer and earn. This is optimized digitally and this has over 100 signups. 

We used web based ERPs in our management of invoices, estimates, delivery notes etc we have incorporated CRM softwares to our websites and social media platforms. This also helps us send email news letters to our clients.

 The ecommence site is a very good resource as we are gradually moving all transactions through the website. 

The most common synthetic plastic is polyethylene (PE). Primarily used in packaging, such as plastic bags and bottles, it constitutes over one third of all plastics on the market. Due to its ductility, versatility and relatively low production costs, PE is widely used for single-use plastics: goods which are used for an average of 12 minutes, yet with a lifetime of a hundreds of years. 

Unfortunately, most synthetic plastics have an equally long lifetime and do not readily biodegrade - posing a huge strain on our landfills and natural environments. Although many plastics are recyclable; consumer apathy and improper recycling infrastructure means that a huge proportion of technically recyclable plastics still make their way to landfill or, ultimately, the oceans. In addition, when exposed to solar radiation, many plastics release greenhouse gases which further contribute to climate change and drive a whole different host of environmental issues.

This singular problem of using non-biodegradable plastic is an action that has several causal effects, key amongst which are pollution, clogging canals and water ways providing a breeding ground for malaria and other water borne diseases.

Our activities are directly related to solving these key problems on each point of this value chain; producing user friendly bio-degradable paper packaging, fostering awareness programs to deal with consumer apathy and working directly with vendor and retail outlets in changing their packaging materials to biodegradable ones. 

We have helped over 577 restaurants, cafes and retail outlets make the shift from non-biodegradable packaging to biodegradable paper packaging.

In our pilot phase, we served over 2000 individuals, convincing them to make the switch to biodegradable packaging options. We expect the numbers to increase to about 200,000 within the year. This is due to the fact that we are putting digital technology in place, to multiply exponentially the reach of our products.  

Nigeria alone has population of a hundred and seventy-five million people. This represents a critical mass of individuals able to be shown the benefits and advantages of using biodegradable packaging.

Within five years, we expect to service between fifty and a hundred million individuals yearly. Due to the ban on the importation of non-biodegradable plastics in several African countries, the opportunity for this has exponentially increased.

Our goals have been designed to be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound.

By Q3 2020, we estimate to have trained about a 1000 business individuals to be able to also produce biodegradable paper packaging. This is a core focus of our activities as we seek to replicate our solution in a sustainable manner enabling the rapid proliferation of this solution to Africa and the rest of the world.

A key prerequisite in participating in this empowerment program is the prior commitment to also train a thousand individuals within your sphere of influence yearly. These amounts to a ripple effect of five thousand individuals trained yearly, positioned to join in tackling this menace. 

Asides from the goal of developing sustainable cities and communities, we also through this model experience the effect of job creation and the reduction of unemployment across the continent.

Another major goal in our pipeline is setting up an export supply chain. Due to the ban on the importation of single-use plastics in several African countries, huge market opportunity has been made available.

We intend to fully begin supplying these countries by Q2 2020.

Several barriers have been encountered on our journey so far, key amongst which are;

Access to financial resources. The market potential requires industrial level production to be positioned to make a difference in. We seek funds to scale up our production activities, enabling us to serve a bigger portion of the market. This scale up to industrial production levels will also greatly cause reduction in production costs, due to economies of scale enabling reduction in sale prices allowing us serve poor communities and low income groups.

Another major barrier we face is consumer apathy. Most consumers are content with using plastic food packaging as it is what is popularly available and used as its been for decades. 

We are currently setting up structures to increase combating this by fostering awareness through content consumers can directly relate with on the importance and benefits of utilizing biodegradable packaging. 

So far, we have overcome our financial barriers through bootstrapping.

We have invested over $50,000 of personal savings and also ploughed back every income earned into the initiative.

Other financial resources gained will be channeled into scaling up production to industrial capacity, and also awareness programs. 

Pushing sustainable product options have met several challenges over time, inclusive of environmental compatible products. We have designed informative marketing content capable of converting consumer spending to biodegradable paper packaging products.

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Currently, we have within our team;

Full time staff: 10

Part time staff: 18

Our team comprises of individuals from several disciplines and backgrounds crucial to the effective deployment of our solution. 

With backgrounds in Engineering, Information Technology, Advocacy, Marketing, Sales, Global business, Accounting and a combined experience of over 30 years across different industries, we possess the requisite technical skills to ensure the sustained profitability of the business. Our passion for environmental protection is reflective in several awards and recognition we have received over time, serving as role models for innovation in our community

We have taken an indigenous approach in the development of our product, ensuring involvement with local communities is present in our business model. This is due to the fact that we discovered that this problem is majorly concentrated in slum under developed communities as they are usually close to or around dump sites. We partner with these communities to facilitate advocating for better environmental laws around the dumping and recycling of plastic and other waste products.

We partner with several fast food and retail outlets, enabling their ability to purchase our product by making discount offers available.    

We have also discovered a wide disparity between the adverse effects single-use plastics have on the environment and people’s awareness of them. We are working with personnel engaged in waste collection and recycling in partnering with us to bringing awareness to communities where they work. We have seen an increase in consumer response since this began, increasing the number of recorded sales to date.

Our customers are retail outlets, fast food chains and traders who engage in making goods available to individuals in packages. Our major beneficiary is the environment and by extension the people who get to live cleaner and safer lives due to a cleaner and safer environment. 

We provide value to the people we serve by:

1) Selling customized/branded eco-friendly food packaging.

2) Retailing of eco-friendly food packaging products on our e commerce website.

3) Selling raw materials for local production.

4) Collaborating with existing paper packaging companies by selling their products on our website.

5) Selling training packages to companies and individuals interested in the industry locals to produce eco- friendly packaging to ensure demands are met.  

We have developed a financial model that allows for the inflow of funds from several sources, beginning from the revenue generated from sales. Another major revenue generating pathway we are exploring is grant funding due to the fact that our product is very intertwined with environmental health and sustainability. 

We have well developed frameworks that are in tangent with the Sustainable Development Goals, ensuring all questions and concerns of prospective grant funders are answered appropriately. 

With a well-developed methodology for execution framework, we have created monitoring and evaluating check points to ensure we stay on track in achieving our goals.

Our model is hybrid (for profit and non-profit) business with huge social impact. We are therefore also able to attract investment capital from private equity / venture capitalist firms as well as grant, donor and social funding.

The platform solve serves as an incubator, where early stage entrepreneurs and organizations can be groomed and equipped to develop their solution into a business model that is sustainable and able to have both local and global impact. 

Solve provides an ecosystem that brings value to early stage entrepreneurs, not just in funding but also in providing the necessary guidance and mentorship that can direct the funding received in effective use. This is clearly reflective in it 12 months personalized support program.

A major barrier solve helps us overcome is the financial barrier, as the funding by solve enables us to not just improve production but also tackle consumer apathy in local communities. 

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We would like to partner with any of the following five organizations for their renowned work in the field of biodegradables;

• Worldcentric
• Papelyco
• Be green packaging
• Ecoware
• Tipa

These organizations are producing and pushing the narrative of biodegradables packaging on a global scale. Partnering with any of them will provide an advantage for our organization to impact people in this sphere globally.

With a great demand and need for eco-friendly alternatives to plastic food Packaging, constant innovation is required to be able to offer different options aided by artificial intelligence and technology that are cost effective and functional. 

The grant would be used to offer newer product offerings eg washable and reusable paper bags. It will also aid our campaign for a greener economy using artificial intelligence to influence people to switch from plastic packaging to more eco-friendly alternatives. 

Research shows that women and their babies suffer the most from malaria related sicknesses and deaths which are largely caused by the plastic dump areas which have now become a breeding site for mosquitoes .

80% of our customer base are women (individuals and small food business owners) who are concerned about the impact of single-use plastics on the environment.

Winning this grant will enable us offer lines of our products at a special discounted rate for females.

Winning this grant will enable my team and I increase capacity, lower production costs and create more earth lovers out of Africans.