Through no-cost lease agreements, iThemba Phakama provides informal waste pickers with safety gear and robust, locally manufactured tricycles for transporting waste. The enterprise is financed through advertising on the side of the tricycles. The members of iThemba Phakama make a monthly contribution until they have saved enough to fund their own tricycle.

This model allows new members to enter once existing members have their own tricycles. It also enables waste-pickers to become individual micro-entrepreneurs, who salvage recycling waste and sell it to buy-back centres.