Ifeoluwa Garba, Founder, Ecobag Mart
Ifeoluwa Garba, a Wood and Biomaterial Engineering student at the University of Ibadan (UI), Oyo State, has founded a company that turns dried grass into sustainable paper bags.
Speaking about his work, Garba said the idea of starting an environmentally sustainable business originated in 2022 during a medical outreach in Epe, Osun State.
He said, “As we travelled deeper into the village, we passed large drilling machines and deep pits. However, upon reaching the village, we found people living in severe poverty.
Malnourished children, collapsing houses, no infrastructure, no schools, no opportunities. Even the Baale (village leader) lived in a deteriorating house.”
According to him, the experience made him realise how the people with the resources Nigeria exports struggle, further sparking his curiosity about what dried grass can be made into.
Despite struggling to source the exact grass for the paper bags and facing funding and production challenges, he said, “We were able to build a low-budget factory, get some machines that will help us to carry out these processes a little bit better than what I was doing manually.”
