When you first meet Matilda Payne, she comes across as an unassuming and focused go getter. Unbeknownst to many, she is also a heavy hitter in the world of sustainable development.
“I hate waste. That is basically what it is,” says Matilda, an irony given that she depends on it to make a living. “Every time I see waste, I try to figure out what to do with it to turn it around so that it does not become a hazard to the environment.”
Matilda attended Wesley Girls’ High School Cape Coast, School of Fashion & Design Accra and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Kumasi all in Ghana. She is a designer, social entrepreneur, environmental activist passionate about halting climate change, promoting good environmental sanitation practices in Ghana and beyond and a mentor for young girls through her quarterly organized career guidance and counseling conference.
Matilda is almost sure to be fashioned in any of her accessories, may that be necklaces, wrist bands earrings or shoes. And just as well, as she is the founder of MH Couture and co-founder of Xtreme Upcycle in Ghana, startups that Matilda, together with her partner and team are finding alternative uses for environmental waste by turning trash to treasures.
Having been entrepreneurs for over a decade with seven years social enterprise and environmental activists experience, Matilda with her partner Eric Opoku Boakye-Ansah are not just designers and artisans but also eco- warriors changing the narrative by turning trash to treasure through innovation in Ghana and beyond. They believe that waste is wealth.
MH Couture was established in 2002 as an eco-friendly unique, and one of a kind, firm engaged in the designing of haute couture fashion accessories such as necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings, brooches, anklets, charms, belts and bags. On the other hand Xtreme Upcycle was established in 2012 as an eco-friendly upcycled handcrafter of home accessories such as furniture, chandeliers, mirrors, napkin holders, and others, all produced from materials in transition such as used vehicle tyres and tubes, scraps, e-waste, recycled metals, used bicycle tyres and tubes, cranks and wheels, used pallets, drift and reclaimed wood, bottle beads, coconut shells and many others.
The couple was introduced to the Ghana Cleaner Campaign who told them about an upcoming project that was EU sponsored called Switch Africa Green and they confirmed interest in taking a workshop-based training on industrial symbiosis.
“That changed the face of our work,” Matilda said. “Initially we were collecting the rubbish that people were bringing to us and paying them. This was limiting because we could not go to the source. We were sub-contracting to people, and they were collecting and bringing the waste.”
Meanwhile they realized that they could get double that waste to work with. Through industrial symbiosis, learnt after attending the workshop, the couple realized that they were able to get to more people who were potential resources and they could get more waste to use as inputs in their business.
‘We realized that we could even use our own waste. We could keep using waste even to the last bit and there would be nothing to throw away,” Matilda said.
Matilda and her group work on most of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to halt climate change in their own small way, promoting good environmental sanitation practices, creating employment for all and especially women and contributing to the education of young underprivileged but brilliant girls in their society.
“By focusing on reuse, recycling and a low carbon footprint, UNEP supports projects that address issues like resource scarcity, poverty, and pollution while creating new employment and income opportunities for the future,” says Patrick Mwesigye, UNEP Africa Office Regional Coordinator on Resource Efficiency and SCP. “These projects show how support for business efficiency, knowledge sharing, and capacity building can ingrain green concepts into national development policies as well as local business plans.”
They participated at the EU Delegation to Ghana’s Europe Day Exhibition 2019, facilitated workshops at Climate Week events 2019 and are now leading advocates on enhancing resource productivity and environmental performance through the concept of industrial symbiosis.
“Through industrial symbiosis and the sponsorship of SWITCH Africa Green, we were able to discover that people have waste that they did not want, but we could turn it to something better, so we took it,” Matilda explains. “We wanted, we looked, we found, and we got, and we made use of it, and it’s all a process of learning from the SWITCH Africa Green project.”
Through their exploits and together with their team of collectors, cleaners, innovators, artisans, quality controllers and marketers, Matilda is engaged in several community initiatives which has empowered young underprivileged but brilliant girls in Ghana as well as career guidance and counseling conferences and mentorship programs for pupils on how to become great social entrepreneurs in future as well as train pupils on the proper disposal of waste periodically.
