A NDOLA-based solid waste management company Kathumba Innovations, is set to invest KR200,000 to establish a recycling plant to process garbage into composite for the organic farming industry.

Company chief executive officer Given Sivubwa said the recycling plant was expected to produce more than 200 tonnes of composite in its initial stages and will employ at least 100 workers.

Kathumba has identified an alternative site in the industrial area which was ideal for the project.

"We have made an application to the local authority to consider leasing the garbage disposal site to us in order to not only manage it but to enable us to use it as an ideal place for establishing a composite recycling plant," he said.

Mr Sivubwa said farmers growing organic plants which are on demand on the export market, large-scale farmers wishing to improve their soil fertility, land scaping businesses and flourists, were among the market forces which the composite recycling plant was targeting.

He said Kathumba Innovations had an advantage because it was already involved in the garbage collection business which had household and commercial clients throughout Ndola.

He said the creation of a recycling plant was a greenfield investment which was failing to attract investors in Zambia because of lack of incentives.

There are few recycling plants in Zambia which are being managed by a small number of entrepreneurs at small-scale and medium-scale industry levels and yet a lot of solid waste which could be tapped for income generation and employment creation goes untapped.