Tunisian engineer Sabri Cheriha has become a social entrepreneur and works at a depot hosting Wefix.
The engineer was washed away by social entrepreneur Sabrie Cheriha at a small depot on the outskirts of Tunisian capital.
Cheriha currently has around 8 million home appliances and 9 million mobile phones in use across Tunisia, but when these devices are broken or replaced, “there are no services to properly dispose of them.” I’ve said that.
Wefix, a startup that won the second place Community Entrepreneur Award last year, stands out by offering “all-in-one service” and reducing E-Waste by offering collections, repairs and recycling.
The aim is to provide “economic benefits as well as environmental and social impacts,” Cheriha said, and in a country with an average monthly salary of around 1,000 Dinar ($310), the company has been renovated. He added that the product could be up to 60% cheaper.
The startup “evaded” 20 tons of waste last year in 2023 and “evaded” 80 tons of waste last year.
“When we talk about ‘waste avoided’, we are also considering the resources needed to manufacture a single washing machine. A 50 or 60 kilos of finished products is required beyond the bulk of raw materials,” he explained.
“So we have two impacts on our environment.”
Tunisia has generally vowed to tackle it in vain, but e-waste presents certain challenges and sometimes has no facility pathway to address them.
Tunisia produces an estimated 140,000 tonnes of e-waste per year, said Waste Management Expert Walid Merdassi.
The majority of this amounts to an estimated 80,000 tonnes per year, and is produced by households and there is no official recycling system, he added.
Merdassi says the government will require manufacturers and retailers to retrieve used machines and recycle and export valuable raw materials such as gold, copper, platinum, etc. from the devices they process. He said 13 local businesses specializing in this should be encouraged.
In the meantime, Wefix is ​​moving forward at its own pace, reducing e-waste in Tunisia by promoting the sale of renovated appliances instead of new purchases, Cheriha said.
Cheriha hopes to eventually expand Wefix to Morocco.
“It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find skilled workers in the electronic sector.” Many have moved to Europe and there is a high demand for renovated appliances, he said.
©2025 AFP
Quote: Tunisian startup undertakes E-Waste Challenge (2025, February 15) Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2025-02-tunisian-startup.html
This document is subject to copyright. Apart from fair transactions for private research or research purposes, there is no part that is reproduced without written permission. Content is provided with information only.
