By Nicholas Akasula
Rodney Akongel Mukula went through school in Uganda at King’s College Budo before proceeding to the University of Kent in the United Kingdom.
He pursued a law degree and performed well, graduating with honours in company and corporate law, property law, family and criminal law, and the law of tort. However, this academic success was largely a formality, as his true passion lay elsewhere.
“I went for it because my parents wanted it, arguing that they did not want me wasting my grades,” he says.
Destiny
When Mukula returned from the UK, he sat module papers at Makerere University in preparation for joining the Law Development Centre (LDC). However, fate had other plans.
“They lost my Paper One of the Law of Evidence,” Mukula says.
He adds that by then he had already started working. “So I said, there you go, this legal thing is a closed door for me,” he narrates.
That incident opened up space for Mukula to pursue another path altogether: the founding of Asante, a waste management company he runs to date.
“I believe in African solutions for African problems. When I returned in 2009, I gathered some boys on Dewinton Road to start picking bottles for me. My family did not know about this because, even to date, there are reservations about my work in waste management. It is only after the Kiteezi incident that attention was drawn to waste. So here I was, with a dream to recycle, repurpose and manage waste, and to manage the planet better than I received it from God,” he notes.
Passion
Now 40, Mukula says his inspiration was shaped while he was in the UK, where he admired the advanced waste management systems.
“You cannot just throw rubbish anywhere,” he says, pointing to the strict segregation systems. Recyclables, garden waste, hazardous waste and kitchen organic waste are separated at source.
“I realised that back home we were mixing everything,” he explains.
His first team came together while he was working at his parents’ ice cream parlour, then known as Bimbo. Around the premises were frequent “scavengers” — rubbish pickers and unemployed street youths who parked cars or helped lift heavy items for customers. Mukula shared his idea with them.
“I asked them to collect bottles from around, which I would then sell to Chinese traders in Nalukolongo,” he recounts.
The venture proved profitable, but for the first eight months Mukula admits he did not manage the business well. He spent much of the profit on luxuries and reinvested very little. Eventually, he learned a hard lesson.
“My father started realising I had money and wondered what was happening. For the record, I come from a white-collar background where you are expected to be a lawyer, doctor or engineer. When he finally found out, he was not pleased. There was a conversation, but destiny still had its way,” he says.
Mukula later formalised the business, sold his Mercedes-Benz and committed fully to the venture.
Asante Waste management
“Starting out was tough. Entrepreneurship is a very lonely walk and it is not for everyone. I must admit that my success has been God,” he says.
Asante Waste Management is a 360-degree waste management company operating across the entire waste chain, from waste picking, sorting and recovery, to responsible disposal and public sensitisation.
Registered in 2013, the company provides comprehensive waste management services to residential, industrial and commercial clients. It partners with communities and customers to reduce and manage waste from collection to disposal, while recovering valuable resources with the goal of a cleaner environment.
“We also extend our services to local authorities and town councils. As a nation, we are not doing well in waste management. Looking at the quantity of litter in the city and other parts of the country, there is need for a concerted effort to address weak policies, poor enforcement and inadequate infrastructure. If one buys bottled water, there should be a recycling point where it is disposed of and turned into valuable items. We need to follow the waste stream,” he says.
Two cents
Mukula believes the country’s waste crisis persists because waste management is not treated as a core business by many companies that produce or use plastics.
“There is need for a concerted effort to address how plastics and other products that turn into waste are recycled. As long as this is not addressed, challenges like Kiteezi will keep recurring,” he adds.
Mukula’s firm is in the process of setting up Uganda’s first material recovery facility, where waste collectors and individuals can deposit waste before it is transferred to landfills.
