9 minute read
Student uses his head to launch Innovative human hair recycling company
David Denis came up with the science behind Cutoff Recycle – his company which turns waste human hair into farming fertilizer – while still at high school. He talks to Paa magazine about his long-term plans for an award-winning business that now employs a 100-strong team and is taking on Arusha’s pollution problem.
Recent social distancing measures have meant many of us have left it longer than usual between haircuts. Sitting in the salon and watching your lockdown locks pile up on the floor as the hairdresser clips away, it is tempting to wonder where all that hair goes.
Few have pursued those thoughts, though, as far as David Denis, the chief executive of CutOff Recycle, a Tanzanian company that recycles waste human hair to make fertilizer for arable farms. It is an ingenious idea with far-reaching effects that has seen the company’s co-founders, 23-year-old Denis and Ojung’u Jackson, garlanded with awards and overseeing a business that has grown to involve a 100-strong workforce.
The germ of the idea started when Denis was a 19-year-old student at the School of St Jude, in Arusha, Tanzania, “debating in the school barber shop with friends whether human hair could be recycled,” he says.
School backing
Thirteen years at St Jude’s – a charityfunded school that provides free primary and secondary education to the poorest and brightest children of the Arusha Region – had taught Denis “to be curious and find passion in innovation,” he says. Ever supportive, his teachers encouraged him to pursue his idea.
The keen science student, who chose biology, chemistry and physics as his A-levels, had been taught about the structure of proteins and knowing human hair contained one of its own, keratin, he started joining the dots.
“I knew the constituent elements of proteins are nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and potassium – all of which are macro elements needed for plant growth,” he says. “As hair contains keratin, I realized it must also contain all of those elements.”
Start-up: David Denis with CutOff Recycle co-founder Ojung'u Jackson
Testing the theory
Denis and classmate Jackson began to test that theory by running a series of experiments in the St Jude’s laboratory. With the support of the school’s lab technician, they honed a process of hydrolysis – a chemical reaction in which water is used to break down the bonds of a particular substance – to extract the keratin from the hair and harness its plant-boosting properties. In a few months the studentpreneurs were producing their own liquid fertilizer made from hair collected from the school barbershop, just in time to present their work at the 2018 St Jude’s science fair, where they were named first runners-up. More awards were to come while the duo were still in high school, including winning the Best Science Project of that year from the Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science & Technology.
Many of the awards came with cash prizes along with connections to a network of clients and investors. Soon Denis and Jackson began to believe they had the means to develop their prototype into a workable business. As two of St Jude’s brightest prospects, the pair had both secured places at universities, with the school continuing its mentorship by funding their graduate fees. However, with the school’s blessing, they decided to defer their university places and use the gap year to get the business off the ground.
Tons of human hair
CutOff Recycle has now been running 15 months. In that time Denis has collected more awards – the latest being second prize in the Global Student Entrepreneurship Award – while his company has collected around 25 tons of human hair. More than 100 hairdressers in the Arusha region now allow CutOff Recycle’s team of young collectors to drop by each week and transport the wastehair to the company’s factory.
Here the hair is sorted, washedand dried before it undergoes thechemical hydrolysis. The result isa branded liquid fertilizer, which,Denis says, has proved effective inboosting yields of the valued cropsof vegetable farmers in the Arusharegion, with 32 local farms nowmaking regular use of the product.
CutOff Recycle’s impact in the community is crucial to Denis. Growing up in a loving, but poor family in Arusha, where job prospects are slim, he knows how lucky he was to be given the gift of education with St Jude’s and he is making sure plenty more young people will benefit from his good fortune.
“In the Tanzanian community, especially the indigenous part of Arusha where I grew up, it is always worth thinking ahead of time,” he says. “There are no jobs! There’s a lot of poverty and dependency. As a child from a low-income family who got a full educational scholarship as a highachieving and extraordinary student, you feel indebted to the community you come from. Therefore, not only do I need to assure myself a job of my own but create it for many young people with or without education.”
Growing business: The CutOff Recycle fertilizer and herbicide is proving popular with Arusha farmers
Currently, there are more than 100 people on the CutOff Recycle payroll, including the production team, packaging and delivery team and the boda-boda riding collectors. Denis sees this number vaulting into four figures as the company expands and diversifies its operations – with future products being finalised including building bricks fortified with hair fibres.
Job opportunities
“CutOff Recycle will already be a major contributor in youth employment in the next four years. By then I expect us to give job opportunities to 5,000 young Tanzanians. We aim to reach more farmers in Tanzania and grow to a scale of servicing 15 million farmers across Tanzania with our fertilizers and herbicides.”
CutOff Recycle’s benefits to the community go beyond job creation. Before its recycling work began, all waste hair in the Arusha region – as is the case across the country – was disposed of at refuse sites. When these get full, the contents are set alight to create more space. Denis knew to beware the noxious fumes released into the air when hair at these dumps was burned and he also knew too well the array of health conditions suffered by residents because of the fires.
He says: “There was a dump site in the neighbourhood I lived in for years and not only did I see it every time I passed, but family members were victims of infections due to the environmental effects of poor waste disposal. The dump site at school was filled with waste hair from the saloon every weekend ready to be burnt. It was the same situation with barbershops all across Arusha.
“At CutOff Recycle we want to totally cut off the chain of disposing of waste hair in dumps. That is why we will continue to come up with alternative uses. We have two projects being finalized right now.”
Lessons: Denis and Jackson explain the science behind their invention to students
For all the company’s rapid expansion, there have been challenges along the way. Barbershops were not always so willing to donate their waste hair with some dismissing the recycling claims as witchcraft, but the majority have come around. Denis has also been finding getting his products approved a laborious process. “We are still struggling with certification of our agri-products for mass production and distribution,” he says. “This is a new technology and the bureaucratic process is slowing us down.”
Studentpreneur
Denis and Jackson are now having to deal with these business obstacles while juggling the demands of full-time education as both have now begun their university courses. Denis is studying environmental science at Ardhi University, in Dar es Salaam, while Jackson – who has also gained plaudits for his role in CutOff Recycle, being named among the top ten entrepreneurs in Tanzania by African university network Ruforum – is a couple of thousand kilometres further south at the University of Botswana.
The juggling of responsibilities is “tough”, Denis admits, and the usually straight-A student has taken a hit in his early grades at Ardhi. However, he knows continuing his learning is integral to his career development.
“It’s so hard, but I know my purpose, I came to university not to fulfil anyone’s demands but to improve my knowledge around environmental management, which I am passionate about,” he says. “So, whatever it takes, I have to do well in schoolwork. However, the job is also demanding. I am on standby 24/7 because we have families fed by the business. Sometimes I miss classes, sometimes I miss company update meetings. As an entrepreneur life is demanding, and we have no excuse to not do well. I just received results for my first university exams and have 3As, 3B+, 2B, and 1C. OK grades for a studentpreneur who misses classes, tests and who joined one month after studies began.”
To ensure the smooth day-to-day running of CutOff Recycle while Denis divides his loyalties between his startup and his studies, he has put in place “a strong and loyal” management team. Denis also appreciates the support of the African Leadership Academy, who last year made him the only finalist from Tanzania for its Anzisha Prize for young entrepreneurs and continues, he says, to “back me through its advisory board as well as monthly check-ins and wellness advice”.
Looking to the future
Still, Denis’s most faithful supporter remains St Jude’s. As one of the 1,800 ‘lost causes’ given a life changing education at the school, the former student feels forever indebted. His gap year provided a chance to show his appreciation by teaching science classes at St Jude’s and surrounding schools, sharing his passion for a subject often undervalued, but which he believes is of paramount importance in an innovative, modern world.
“I have seen an opportunity in the coming few years where innovation is going to grow due to technology needs with its expansion in Tanzania and across whole Africa,” he says. “Many manufacturing industries are going to open up and require scientific skills and I think is important to prepareyoung stars of the future on that path.I got out there first with CutOff Recyleto make people understand the amazingthings science can do.”
Those early science lessons showedDenis knowledge begins by askingquestions and then seeking answers.CutOff Recycle was the answer to onequestion, but Denis intends to answermany more. Still barely in his 20s, heis a man on a mission who will ensurethat his time, like hair on an Arushabarber’s floor, is not wasted.
Opportunities: Denis believes his scientific skills will continue to be in demand in a growing Tanzania
Six more uses for human hair
1. Wig making - Human hair wigs look natural and are durable. Most donated hair goes into wig making.
2. Test tress making - When cosmetic chemists design hair products they need to test them on the real thing.
3. Clean-up Oil Spills - NASA has been testing a technique to use human hair to clean up oil spills. Apparently, dog fur is also effective.
4. Create furniture - Arts student Oksana Bondar created a dressing table stool made with human hair combined with polylactic acid, a bidegradable plastic made from sugar cane, to form a solid texture.
5. Craft a work of art - It took 42,000 haircuts, but artist Wenda Gu was able to create a giant banner using human hair.
6. Make soy sauce - A Chinese company treated human hair to make edible amino acids for soy sauce. It was soon banned by the Chinese government.
