This is the new funding playbook for e-waste companies

July 20, 2025

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Hinckley E-Waste Recycling, a Nigerian startup, has secured funding from impact investors Goodwell Investments and Alitheia Capital to scale its operations. The investment will support the construction of the country’s first battery recycling plants, with a combined capacity to process up to 30,000 tonnes of electronic waste per year.

  • Access to funding remains a major hurdle for African circular startups, with many struggling to attract capital despite growing waste challenges and clear market potential.

  • Hinckley’s success offers key pointers on overcoming the hurdle: Focus on scale, integrate informal collectors, and align with industrial and environmental needs to unlock investor confidence and growth.

  • Our take: Hinckley’s deal shows Africa’s circular economy doesn’t lack innovation, but it lacks early growth capital and infrastructure funding that turns good ideas into scalable impact… Read more (2 min)

As Kenya advances its circular economy ambitions, Solomon Njoroge, chairperson of the Nairobi Recycler Waste Welfare Association, says waste pickers must be formally recognised as essential workers and integrated into national and county-level policy frameworks if the transition is to be truly just and inclusive.

  • According to Mr Njoroge, most policies and private sector interventions exclude the very people who have sustained Kenya’s waste ecosystem for decades, undermining livelihoods while shifting value to formal actors with more resources and influence.

  • In an interview, he argues that recognition, integration and fair compensation are critical to ensuring that circularity doesn't leave behind those who made it possible in the first place - the waste pickers.

  • Find the full conversation here (2 min)

Over the next few months, 12 key events across Africa and beyond will bring together stakeholders advancing the circular economy, as identified by Circular Rising. Of these events, seven are focused specifically on circular economy themes, while the remaining five spotlight related sustainability issues across various sectors.

  • Among the circular-focused events are both broad, cross-sector conferences and topic-specific gatherings, covering areas such as e-waste, plastic recycling, and waste treatment.

  • South Africa stands out as the dominant host, with nine of the 12 events taking place in the country. These include four sector-specific circular events and all five of the related sustainability gatherings.

  • Participate in the events here (2 min)

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Students explore the circular pathway board game developed by Sam Dindi

 

Jobs

👷 Work as Assistant Consultant -Environmental Planning and Advisory at WSP (SA)

👷 Apply to build solid waste management and recycling system at Kakuma (Kenya)

👷 Provide technical assistance to UNICEF as Sanitation Consultant (Zambia)

👷 Undertake research on plastic waste pollution at ICUN (Tanzania)

👷 Be a Senior Finance Advisor for a recycling project at Technoserve (Nigeria)

👷 Consult for the International Telecommunication Union (Africa) 

Various

✅ Liberia launches Canada-funded waste management project

🛞 Tyre recycling market to hit $18,137.8 million by 2032 at 3.3% CAGR

🏭 Lagos to build a $400 million waste-to-energy plant

📜 Submit your abstracts for the upcoming ICERA conference

⚠️ How Nairobi's only landfill became an environmental catastrophe

👗 Swedish report rules out dumping in Kenya’s mitumba trade

❓ Why waste-to-energy utilization isn’t taking off in sub-Saharan Africa

♻️ South Africa to enact a new tyre recycling law

Seen on LinkedIn 

Shyaka Sebihogo, an Msc student in Circular Economy, says, “We didn’t learn circularity, we lived it. Long before the world called it the Circular Economy, African communities were already reusing, repairing, and repurposing everything out of wisdom, not waste.”