For ten years, Siyanda Nohashe used to sell South African designer suits. But in 2018, at the age of 30, she quit her job and traded in the suits she wore for blue overalls. Nohashe started a municipal wheelie bin cleaning business.
He says he wanted to earn more and work for himself. “I quit. I told my boss I wanted to start my own business,” Nohashe says.
Initially he thought of opening a car wash, but “everyone was doing it”.
“I wanted to do something unique,” he said.
With no capital and only a 20-litre bucket and a broom, he began cleaning the municipal wheeled bins after they were emptied on rubbish collection day for people living in Dunoon.
Charging just R5 per container when he started, he soon had 30 customers.
But he says there was a social stigma to overcome. He said that people had seen him in a suit, and now he was wearing dirty overalls and they quickly judged him. Some people thought that he was a drug addict. He “killed me emotionally,” he says.
He now has hundreds of clients and is doing well. She has moved from a backyard shack to an apartment with indoor plumbing and hot water. You have registered your business and have one permanent and one temporary employee.
It has recently introduced recycling for its customers. He buys clear trash bags and hands them out so people can separate recyclables from the trash that goes to landfills. He sells the recyclables to three companies in Montague Gardns.
When wheelie bins break down, Nohashe helps clients apply to the City of Cape Town for new ones free of charge.
Mawawa Dyobani, who has been a customer for the past three years, says that Nohashe provides a service that he doesn’t have time to do himself.
“He cleans them with chemicals and then they smell good,” says Dyobani.
Nohashe’s next goal is to purchase a bakkie and a high-pressure cleaning unit so that he can expand his operation to other areas.
