Nairobi — Despite the advancement of technology across the World, with most spaces becoming digitized, people still heavily depend on the wooden pencil, especially for learning.
At the end of the day, wooden pencils have a toll on the environment as 82,000 trees are cut down each year to make 2 billion traditional wooden pencils.
Each tree cut yields about 170,000 pencils, and the production of wooden pencils takes a toll on the world's forests.
With the intent of making a change and creating generational wealth, Mohamud Omari and his Rashid ventured into the manufacturing business of making pencils out of recycled newspapers.
"When we started we actually saw a lot of potential on pencils. We came up with a slogan that it's all starts with a pencil. Everyone starts with a pencil. We are where we are because a pencil had an input," Omari stated.
"A pencil is the first tool in terms of your journey of success, education and life. The first tool you learn to use is a pencil," he added.
It took them two and half years of trial and error to come up with a perfect pencil suited for the market.
The process of standardization and certification of the pencils made out of newspapers to the standards of the market was not a walk in the park.
"The process was long and it was mainly a trial and error process. We thought it was an easy process of getting a newspaper cut it, roll it, sharpen it and use it but that was far from the truth," he stated.
"We had to go through a lot of trials to come up with a perfect pencil. The first pencils we made at that time we not sharpenable. We had to look around and rework our formulas to see how we can have a pencil that is sharpenanble," said Omari.
In the process of making eco-friendly pencils, only graphite is imported into the country.
It starts with newspaper collections which are cut into the right size, then graphite is glued to the cuttings of the newspapers.
A double-page newspaper gives about 3 pencils.
In the next phase the pieces of newspaper and graphite are put in a roller machine where they are shaped into cylindrical pencil shapes.
They are then left in the sun for three days to dry off and lastly put into a final compressor, sharpened, and packaged.
"Initially when we were starting, we could only make about ten pencils a day. Imagine working a whole day and all you could make were ten pencils, it's very frustrating," Omari decried.
Market Challenge
Although they have faced major setbacks as a company the challenges they faced did not deter them from focusing on the goal.
"But we didn't give up and now we are at a capacity where we can do up to 40,000 pencils a day with no hiccups because we have repeated the process so many times and identified our failures," Omari noted.
Penetrating the Kenyan market has been quite a challenge for Momo pencils branded pencils due to the competition on the shelves of retail stores.
Eco-friendly pencils have shifted in distributing pencils through corporate clients and schools.
"They have been questions about what is the future of newspapers now that everyone is going digital and paperless. Our response is that newspapers have been there for three or four centuries they are not going to die down completely tomorrow or the next ten years," said Omari.
With the rapid digitalization of most government institutions and cooperate organization moving digital, Momo Pencil is in the process of finding a contingency plan for recycling other materials to make pencils.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
"In our research department if we can able to convert a newspaper to a pencil. We are also in the process of looking hoe we can recycle other materials to use because paper will be there in one form or the other," he said.
Donating Back
Yearly, they donate pencils to disadvantaged communities as part of their goal to change society and create awareness of their initiative.
On every visit they make, they plant trees in the schools as part of educating the young generation on environmental matters.
"Pencils are not going to die out regardless of how long it takes. People still have to write and sign and use a pencil," he stated.
"Population is increasing and number of children joining schools is increasing. Because of that the demand will always be there," said Omari.
