Plastic with a Purpose

Waste has value, says Bilikiss Abiola, founder of Wecyclers. Her team travels through the slums in Lagos on bicycles, paying families cash in exchange for their recyclable trash. The business has made the city cleaner and created at least 80 jobs.

After a typhoon hit Dumaguete City in the Philippines’ Central Visayas region, Whitney Fleming began to work with local women “ to create jewelry from materials found in the local dump site.” Eventually their collaboration led to the creation of Lumago Designs, a social enterprise. The jewelry is made from found reusable items and the local women are paid fair wages.

In Argentina, a trio of friends wanted to curb tire pollution, while simultaneously create financial opportunities for single mothers. That’s exactly what they did. Xinca, is a shoe company that uses rubber from old tires. So far 20,000 kilograms of tires have been recycled, and 25 women from rural areas have been hired. “This opportunity is very good because you are not just learning, you are meeting incredible people in the job and earning money at the same time.”

Eight million metric tons of plastic waste ends up in the ocean every year, including in Haiti where it litters the beaches and causes sanitation issues. A social entrepreneur from Executives Without Borders partnered with Haiti Recycling to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and sustainably monetize the collecting and recycling of plastic waste through a new organization, Ramase Lajan. When oil prices tanked and the recycling centers struggled to maintain a profit, social enterprise Thread stepped in to take up the plastic, turning it into fabric to make socially responsible goods for sale.

Thread is a social enterprise out of Pittsburgh taking a two-for-one approach to the issues of both poverty and pollution in Haiti. They help take plastic waste out of the environment by turning it into durable fabrics that are sold to clothing and accessory companies looking to source responsible materials, and they create sustainable jobs for Haitians who collect and process the plastic waste.

A recycling initiative in Liberia turns plastic waste into tiles and provides income for the women who collect it. From picking up plastics, some women can earn up to $40 a week. While it’s not always easy, picking up the waste has also unblocked drains which has reduced flooding.

Although Indonesia is making efforts to improve disability rights, progress is slow. In the meantime, a group called Economic Empowerment for Entrepreneurs with Disability (EEED) was formed in partnership with the British Council’s DICE (Developing Inclusive Creative Economies) program. Participants in the program learn entrepreneurial skills by creating their own social enterprise, supplemented by lessons in things like marketing and management. This helps those in Indonesia with disabilities become socioeconomically independent and able to envision a develop a meaningful vision of the future.

A collective for Brazilian women artisans named Rede Asta provides training, production networks, links to consumers, and an online market to empower them to make a livable income. The group is also environmentally-conscious, focusing on creative waste reuse solutions that result in upcycled products. There are challenges as the collective grows, but they have supported more than 1,500 artisan women since opening.

With the staggering amounts of garbage produced by modern lifestyles, waste disposal is becoming an increasingly difficult challenge for communities around the world. Vienna has tackled the trouble of trash with an innovative system, channeling the heat from incineration to warm homes and provide hot water, recovering reusable items from the waste stream and selling them in a special shop, and proactively educating the populace about how to reduce waste.

The Recycling for the Environment by Strengthening Income and Livelihoods of Entrepreneurs (RESILIENT) Project helps support the economy of waste collectors and aggregators by providing training, safety equipment and mentorship on how to handle finances and operate a waste business. Waste collectors and aggregators who have participated in the RESILIENT Project earn increased profits and are able to collect and recycle more plastics and other materials.