Every Tuesday in Roysambu, a queue forms outside our buy-back point — not for something being given away, but for something being sold. Residents arrive with sacks of sorted plastic bottles and leave with cash, weighed and paid for on the spot. It's one of the simplest ideas in our entire model, and one of the most consistently effective: pay people fairly for plastic, and plastic stops being waste.

How the Roysambu buy-back point works

Every Tuesday from mid-morning, our team sets up at a fixed point in Roysambu with a scale, a ledger, and space to sort incoming plastic by type. Residents bring clean, dry plastic — mostly PET drinking bottles and HDPE containers — which is weighed on the spot and paid for immediately in cash, at published per-kilogram rates that don't change based on who's selling or how much they bring. There's no registration process and no minimum quantity; a single sack is as welcome as a full sackful collected over weeks.

What makes this different from simply dropping plastic in a recycling bin is the immediacy of the transaction. A resident who might otherwise not bother separating plastic from general waste has a direct, same-day incentive to do it: money in hand, not an abstract environmental benefit realised somewhere down the line.

Why PET and HDPE specifically

Not all plastic is equally recyclable, which is part of why buy-back pricing varies by type rather than paying a flat rate for "plastic" generally. PET, the clear plastic used in most drinking water and soda bottles, is highly recyclable and fetches the best rates, since recyclers can process it into new bottles, fibre for textiles, or packaging with relatively little loss of quality. HDPE, the sturdier plastic used in things like cooking oil containers and some detergent bottles, is also readily recyclable, though typically at a slightly lower rate reflecting different processing costs downstream.

Other plastic types — certain food wrappers, some bags, mixed or heavily coloured plastics — are harder or impossible to recycle economically at the scale we operate, which is why our buy-back guidance focuses specifically on PET and HDPE rather than accepting all plastic indiscriminately.

What happens after the bottles are weighed

Sorted plastic collected at Roysambu is consolidated with material from our other buy-back points and transported to our main sorting yard, where it's checked, baled by type, and sold on to licensed recyclers. From there, it re-enters the manufacturing chain as raw material for new bottles, containers, or, increasingly, recycled fibre used in items like carpets and clothing. A bottle that arrives at our Tuesday buy-back point rarely takes more than a few weeks to become raw material for something new.

Why a fixed weekly schedule matters more than it seems

Early on, buy-back collection happened irregularly, whenever our team had capacity to set up. The shift to a fixed Tuesday schedule in Roysambu made a bigger difference to participation than almost any other change we made. Residents began saving up plastic specifically for Tuesday rather than deciding case by case whether it was worth the trip, and the predictability meant word spread faster through the neighbourhood — a fixed, reliable schedule is something people can tell their neighbours about with confidence.

What this means for Roysambu specifically

Since the buy-back point opened, visible plastic litter in the areas immediately around it has measurably reduced, and several households that weren't previously on our door-to-door collection route have joined after first engaging through buy-back selling. It's become, in a small way, an entry point into the wider waste system for residents who hadn't yet connected with our other programmes.

How to prepare plastic for buy-back

  • Rinse bottles and containers to remove food or liquid residue — they don't need to be spotless, just reasonably clean.
  • Remove caps if possible and separate them, since caps are often a different plastic type from the bottle itself.
  • Flatten bottles where practical to make transport easier, though this isn't required for payment.
  • Sort PET (clear bottles) separately from HDPE (opaque containers) if you can — it speeds up weighing, though our team will sort if needed.
  • Bring plastic to the Roysambu point any Tuesday from mid-morning; no appointment or registration needed.

How Roysambu compares to our other buy-back points

Each of our four buy-back points has developed a slightly different character based on its neighbourhood. Roysambu, our second point after Kasarani itself, has consistently been among our highest-volume locations, something we attribute partly to its position along a busier commercial corridor where more plastic naturally circulates through shops and households, and partly to simply being one of our longest-running points, giving residents more time to build the Tuesday habit into their routine.

What a bottle's journey looks like end to end

Tracing a single bottle through the system: a resident finishes a drink, rinses the bottle, and sets it aside through the week. On Tuesday, it's weighed and paid for at the Roysambu point, then transported with the rest of that day's collection to our main sorting yard, where it's checked, baled with similar PET material, and eventually sold to a licensed recycler. From there, it's processed into raw recycled plastic, which manufacturers use to produce new bottles, containers, or textile fibre. Door to door, that whole journey typically takes a matter of weeks — a genuinely short loop for material that would otherwise have taken decades to break down in a landfill.

Frequently asked questions

How much do you pay per kilogram of plastic?

Rates vary by plastic type and current market conditions for recycled material, and are posted at the buy-back point itself. PET typically earns more than mixed HDPE.

Do I need to be a resident of Roysambu to sell plastic there?

No. Anyone can bring sorted plastic to any of our four buy-back points, regardless of which village they live in.

What if my plastic isn't fully clean?

Lightly soiled plastic is still accepted, though heavily contaminated plastic may be rejected or valued lower, since contamination affects what recyclers will pay for it downstream.

If you're not sure whether your neighbourhood has a nearby buy-back point, check our programmes page for the full schedule, or ask us directly.