What began in the rural heartland of Goromani, Hazyview, in the Bushbuckridge municipality, Mpumalanga, has evolved into a pioneering green tech company poised to reshape how South Africa thinks about roads and plastic waste.
GrooveTech, founded in 2019, is the brainchild of Linah Maphanga, a passionate physicist with a vision to solve two of the country’s pressing challenges: waste management and deteriorating road infrastructure.
“We started this company in 2019, but later moved to Gauteng, because we were
receiving more support from the City of Tshwane compared to municipalities in Mpumalanga,” said Maphanga, director of GrooveTech.
The start-up originally operated from the Innovation Hub in Gauteng, where it received significant government support.
As operations expanded to meet industrial demands, the company relocated to Silverton, Pretoria — a move that enabled closer collaboration with the City of Tshwane and improved access to key stakeholders.
“We moved this side to help the municipality trial some of our products,” she explains. We take plastic waste material to produce asphalt that is used to fix and build new roads.
“We have been on that journey since then. Now we are trying to obtain our certifications so that municipalities can buy the products.”
Asphalt is a black, sticky substance, often mixed with small stones or sand, that forms a strong surface when it becomes hard, commonly used for roads, parking lots and other surfaces.
Maphanga’s story is deeply rooted in her childhood experiences of growing up in rural Mpumalanga, where infrastructure challenges were not just an inconvenience but a barrier to essential services.
“I was drawn to the road sector because, growing up in the rural areas, back in the day, we did not have tarred roads. This made it difficult to access services such as healthcare.
for example.
“I made it a point to find a solution that would help municipalities stretch the rands that they have for services.
“In most instances, municipalities cite budget constraints when they have to deliver
services. Our material is affordable, which means municipalities can patch more
potholes,” Maphanga said.
With a Bachelor of Science in physics and an honours degree in geophysics from the University of the Witwatersrand, Maphanga combines academic prowess with innovation.
“Through that, I was able then to apply the skills that I acquired in processing waste materials into materials that can be used in the road industry,” she said.
Today, GrooveTech operates with a lean team of nine, but big ambitions are in motion, thanks to its selection as one of four new enterprises under the Transform South Africa
initiative – a collaboration led by Unilever, the British High Commission in South Africa and EY.
“I saw the invitation and decided to apply because it aligned with what I was doing. The Transform initiative has a theme called ‘zero waste’; I thought it aligned nicely with my project,” Maphanga said.
Transform South Africa aims to bolster innovative solutions that tackle plastic waste and accelerate the development of a circular economy.
More than 70 applicants responded to the call, but Groove-Tech emerged as one of the standout ideas.
The programme does more than just offer financial support; it also provides participating start-ups with business insight, critical resources, and a network of professionals to help them scale up.
The selection process was facilitated in partnership with the Technology Innovation Agency, an entity of the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation.
For GrooveTech, this marks a critical turning point.
“Through this programme, we will be able to scale,” said Maphanga, who envisions not only growing the business but also contributing to a more environmentally responsible and economically efficient infrastructure model.
• This article first appeared in Vuk’uzenzele
