Eco Zera: From Newspaper to Pencils
Approximately 12 million hectares of
forest are destroyed every year, and deforestation together with agriculture and other land-use changes is responsible for roughly 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions which is responsible for global warming
according to UNEP.
To this effect, there are talks and debates all over the world on how to remedy global warming and one of that remedies is to encourage less waste and smarter use of resources like adopting alternatives to products that require trees as resources for production as Wada Kealotswe is doing with her Eco Zera Pencils.
Botswana-born Wada Kealotswe is a graduate with a BCom in Economics from the University of Pretoria in South Africa as well as a second BA in Development Studies from the University of South Africa. She has over 10 years of experience in international development.
Kealotsew is an entrepreneur and the founder of Aiko Creations which trades
as Eco , a company that manufactures eco pencils from recycled newspapers Wada Kealotswe was inspired to start the Eco Zera because of her love of using paper in crafting as well as contributing to issues around the environment and climate change According to her, the idea took shape after she was involved in a World Bank Youth Summit in 2019. She had pitched a recycling project under the theme, ‘Smarter Cities for a Resilient Future’. Though the project only reached the semi-final, it allowed her to participate as a 2019 Youth Summit cohort and motivated her to start her company.
Eco Zera pencil which is located in l Gaborone, Botswana’s capital city is made from recycled newspaper instead of wood. Their the manufacturing process is environmentally friendly as using recycled newspaper reduces the number of trees that could be cut destroying biodiversity and paper that could be going to the landfill. Kealotswe has been able to produce more than 40,000 pencils while processing about 8,000
How Eco Zera Pencil Is Being Produced
Kealotswe combines newspapers, graphite and other materials needed in the pencil manufacturing process, to produce the pencils.With only 20% machine use and 80% manual effort (by hand), the manufacturing process takes a unique layer of stages. Newspapers are collected from offices and individuals. according to Wada they have offices that call monthly for collection, and even individuals who see our work offer their newspapers,”
Using machinery Kealotswe and the team first cut newspapers to the size of
the graphite, then use paper glue to secure the graphite to the slice of
newspaper cutting. After which a machine rolls the rest of the paper to make pencil rods secured by resin glue.
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