A Nigerian company, Quadloop has discovered a way to recycle electronic waste into solar-powered lanterns and other products which will have a lower impact on the environment.

Quadloop recycles lithium batteries from disposed old laptops for its solar lanterns. The company gets 70% of its material from e-waste.

The founder of Quadloop, Dozie Igweilo, told Reuters that the idea came into light after he discovered a market for affordable, locally produced electrical goods, of which components were not available in the country.

He said: “At that point, we noticed that…if we leverage on electronic waste, we are going to cut down the cost of production as well as the cost of sales, and that is what brought us to where we are today”.

Dozie said that these solar-powered lanterns have been quite helpful to small business owners especially in times of no power supply.

Blessing Samuel, one of Quadloops clients, who is a hairdresser and uses its solar lantern at night.

She told Reuters that: “It’s very good, it has been helpful to me since i got it, it helps me when there’s no light. I use it to do my work and it relieved me of the stress of buying fuel”.