Following Test Drive which was organized in October 2019, Recyclean is one of the 6 projects that has been incubated in the beginning of this year at Turbine. Sharon Lennon shares with us her journey and explains how she came up with Recyclean.

What were you doing before starting your entrepreneurial journey?

I am 32 years old and my entrepreneurial journey started 12 years ago when I had to take over the direction of a family business. After 10 years of ups and downs, I took the decision of shutting down the company mainly due to financial issues. I had a dream of opening a restaurant one day and I was able to achieve it in 2018 along with my mother. However we had to put an end to it for some medical reasons.

But being an entrepreneur at heart, I had to find a new business idea and I came up with Recyclean.

What is Recyclean?

In April 2019, while surfing on the internet I came across an environmental solution that exists in Namibia. With the growing concerns for environmental issues, it was clear to me that there was a business idea to develop for Mauritius as well. I created Recyclean to provide to households a weekly doorstep collect of their recyclables to sort and deliver to recycling factories in exchange of a monthly fee.

It will not be wrong to say that Mauritius has an uneducated population when it comes to recycling and going to segregation points which are generally located in supermarkets’ parking lots takes a lot of time.

Recyclean was born to address 2 issues that are convenience and gain of time. We therefore decided to be the link between those who want to recycle but either don’t know how to do it or do not have the time to recycle.

What was your experience of getting started? How did Test Drive help you with this?

Having learnt from previous failures, I did not want to make the same mistakes. I had to find a solution that would provide Recyclean with the right structure, professional expertise and coaching to help make the wisest decision. Following interview with one of Turbine’s coaches it was rapidly clear to me that Test Drive was exactly what I was looking for.

Three weeks of workshops and coaching have proved the Test Drive to be even more than what I expected. It is more than just a shared workspace, more than just coaches guiding your decisions, it’s a family. A family with every member ready to help at any time. Be ready to be challenged along the way and to have your business challenged from workshop to workshop.

What advice would you give to someone with a business idea?

The best advice I could give you if you have a business idea and you really want to do things correctly right from the start, is to enroll in the next Test Drive Program. You definitely won’t regret and the worse that can happen is that you’ll be making friends while sharing pizzas.