For a lot of young people in Kasarani, waste has quietly become a source of income rather than just a nuisance to deal with — not through any single dramatic programme, but through the steady, unglamorous work of sorting, collecting and selling recyclable material. It's worth telling that story properly, because "waste creates jobs" can sound like a slogan until you look at what it actually means for the young people doing the work.
Where the income actually comes from
There are three distinct ways young people in our network earn from waste work, and they're worth separating because they involve different skills and different levels of commitment. The first is direct employment as trained collectors on our door-to-door route, a fixed role with regular hours and a wage tied to the route's weekly fee income. The second is buy-back selling — young people, often working independently rather than through us, who sort and collect plastic from their own neighbourhoods and bring it to one of our four buy-back points for payment by weight. The third, smaller but growing, is sorting-yard work: helping process and grade recyclables before they're sold on to recyclers, which pays for skilled, careful sorting rather than volume alone.
None of these are large incomes by formal employment standards. What they offer instead is something specific and valuable in an environment with limited formal youth employment: flexible, local, immediately available work that doesn't require capital, a certificate, or connections to get started.
Why waste work suits youth unemployment specifically
Kasarani, like much of peri-urban Nairobi, has a youth unemployment problem that formal job creation alone struggles to solve quickly. Waste work fills a specific gap: the barrier to entry is genuinely low. Buy-back selling requires no equipment beyond a sack and a willingness to sort. Collector roles require training we provide directly, not a qualification earned elsewhere. For a young person who has finished school and is waiting — for capital, for connections, for the right opportunity — waste work is something that can start this week, generating income while something more permanent is figured out.
It also has a compounding effect that's easy to miss. A young person who starts by sorting plastic for buy-back income often ends up understanding the collection and recycling system well enough to eventually take on a formal collector role, or to spot a gap — an underserved street, an untapped source of clean plastic — that becomes their own small operation. Several of our current trained collectors started exactly this way, as informal buy-back sellers before joining the route formally.
What formal collector roles actually pay for
Trained collector positions on our route are paid from the same weekly household fees that fund fuel and equipment, which means growth in collector income is directly tied to growth in the route itself — more villages served means more fee income means more collector positions to fund. We've deliberately prioritised hiring collectors from the villages they serve, both because local knowledge makes the route more effective and because it means waste income stays in the community generating it, rather than being paid to workers commuting in from elsewhere.
The buy-back economy, in numbers that matter locally
Our plastic buy-back initiative pays per kilogram for clean, sorted plastic, with rates varying by type — PET drinking bottles typically fetch more than mixed HDPE containers, reflecting what recyclers actually pay us downstream. For a young person sorting consistently across a neighbourhood, weekly buy-back income can add up to a meaningful supplement, particularly when combined with other informal work. It isn't a full livelihood on its own for most sellers, but it's real, immediate money for material that would otherwise be waste with no value at all.
What's needed to grow this further
The main constraint on youth income from waste work right now isn't willingness — it's capacity. More buy-back points closer to more neighbourhoods would mean less time and effort spent transporting sorted plastic, translating directly into more sellers finding it worthwhile. A permanent materials recovery point, which we're actively planning, would let us process higher volumes and pay better rates by cutting out a transport step between us and recyclers. Both of these are growth priorities specifically because they expand youth income opportunity, not only recycling volume.
What a typical week of buy-back selling actually looks like for a young seller
For a young person sorting plastic across a neighbourhood rather than just their own household, a typical week might involve informal arrangements with several nearby households to collect their sorted recyclables directly, consolidating it into a single sack brought to a buy-back point on the scheduled day. This kind of informal micro-collection, sitting between pure household selling and a formal collector role, is one of the more entrepreneurial patterns we've observed emerge organically, without us directly organising or requiring it.
What limits how far this income can currently scale
We're careful not to overstate waste work as a full solution to youth unemployment in Kasarani — it's a genuine, accessible income source, not a comprehensive one. Its scale is currently bounded by our buy-back and processing capacity, which is exactly why infrastructure investments like the materials recovery point matter directly to youth income potential, not just to our organisation's operational efficiency.
Frequently asked questions
How do I start earning through plastic buy-back?
Sort clean, dry plastic by type and bring it to any of our four buy-back points on their scheduled days. There's no registration or minimum quantity required to start.
How can a young person apply for a collector role?
Collector positions open as the route expands into new villages. The fastest way to be considered is to reach out through our contact page and mention which village you're based in.
Is training provided for collector roles?
Yes. All collectors receive training on safe handling, segregation standards and route procedures before starting; no prior experience in waste management is required.
If you're a young person in Kasarani looking to start earning from waste work, reach out to us — whether that means a buy-back point near you or a future collector role as the route grows.