Sasol and ESD Logos together-22-22-22
Linkedin Youtube X-twitter Instagram Facebook
Sign Up To Linkage
Outside Sasol
Transporter Development

Indalo Yami Interview

We interviewed Lucas Dlomo, Director of Indalo Yami. They work with community members, street waste pickers, landfill site waste pickers, industries, schools, and mechanical workshops.
ESD Overview

What they say:

Our partnership with Sasol increased our business from some certain turnages to another. For example we used to make about 50-60 tons a month but now we are more than 1 000-5 000 tons a month of general recyclable material.
Tons a Month
0
The Challenge:
Challenges that we faced before the partnership remain the same even after the partnership. Our business is heavily dependent on transportation, so fluctuating petrol prices affect our profit and the people we work with. Our day-to-day challenge is regular theft around the area.

We interviewed Lucas Dlomo, Director of Indalo Yami. The company recycles metals, papers, plastic and many more recyclable materials. They work with community members, street waste pickers, landfill site waste pickers, industries, schools, and mechanical workshops.

  1. Can you describe how this project has impacted the community in terms of jobs created and the overall impact?

We play a big role in the community, we started with only 6 employees, we hired another 6 which makes it 12, but we are now sitting on 19 employees. We employ people around our community so that we can improve employment levels. Indalo Yami is a big business that contributes a lot to our community. We have 4 000 waste pickers, 2 500 off-street waste pickers, and 1 500 landfill site waste pickers, so we contribute a lot. We put food on the table for a lot of families through waste collection.

  1. Can you tell us about the difference that you have seen in terms of your collections before partnering with Packa-ching and the waste pickers up until now?

When we collected, we started with 2 Bakkies. Now, we have 8 Bakkies, 8 Trailers, and 8 Trucks. We collect around South Africa, not only in Sasolburg. We are not expecting materials that only come in our gates; we also go and seek commodities or recyclables.

  1. How has the partnership with the waste pickers and packaging changed your operations now, what are you doing differently not just in terms of the numbers but your overall operations?

Before partnering with Sasol and Packaging we usd to operate informal, we used to operate without any safety standards, without good compliance that will engage us with the industries and retailers. But since we have formed that relationship with them we are now a compliant business and our safety standard is in good order. To run this type of business you need to be compliant to market standards. Before we had a good relationship with Sasol we didn’t have offices but now we have an admin office that balances our system from safety, quality management system and other compliances that our business needs to meet.  We now have HR Director, Marketing, Financials, we have safety in place and Quality Management System. 

6. Did you receive any type of training and support from Sasol?

We came into this business and operated as things were at that time but since we are with Sasol we have an HR Director, we have Marketing, we have Financials, we have safety fire fighting and operating machinery like forklifts. The training and support that we received from Sasol is Financial Management, Business Management, Machine operating like Forklift, fire fighting, first aid, accidental report, accidental investigation, snake handling training and many more trainings.

7. What have you gained most from the partnership and engagement with Sasol?

What we gain that we calculate every time is profit. We started with Sasol with about 1.5 million of turnover, but now we are going to 7 million.

8. What are some of the learnings you have received from the programme?

Before we thought that we know everything about this business but after partnering up with Sasol I found out that I know nothing, what I knew was just an introduction but after I found out that there’s a lot to be done and Sasol assisted with trainings and learnings like Business Management, Financials and Marketing. Marketing management, we increase our turnages every month through marketing management. Our marketing strategy is very advanced so we collected a lot of waste from the community, retailers and some businesses around Sasolburg. 

9. Please tell us about where you were before and where you are now. How have you grown in your journey regarding all areas of waste management?

Before, we were only operating to collect waste and delivery waste, but since our partnership with Sasol, we experience that we need to make more to do more in this business. Like now, as we speak, we have a (salvage?) yard that we use for reusable material that we buy, the one that doesn’t need to be recycled; we resell it as is. Some of the material we keep on the (salvage?) yard recreates Wendy toilets, dog kernels and metal roofs – we resell it as is.