Trash For School & Health: Ugandan Innovator Uses Technology to Incentivize Plastic Waste Collection

People across Argentina are earning an income during a severe economic crisis by joining recycling cooperatives. Members collect recyclables off the street and are paid by the co-ops by material and weight.

Chanja Datti, a social enterprise in Nigeria, turns recyclables into commercially viable products to sell for manufacturing, like pellets and bales. The company collects waste from various organizations and pays locals who collect trash and turn it in.

Restaurants, grocers, and cafes can put together surprise bags of surplus food that would have otherwise been thrown out and sell it for a third of the original cost to users on the Too Good to Go app. The app was designed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that accompany food waste while giving businesses a way to recoup losses and consumers a less expensive way to access good food.

The use of plastic waste as an affordable building material is rising in popularity. One option is turning the waste into “Ecobricks” by tightly packing it into a bottle with a stick. A German organization called Project Wings pays locals in Bukit Lawang, Indonesia, to collect plastic and make bricks to be used for buildings.

An initiative in Kigali, Rwanda, pays locals to collect plastic and glass waste to be sold for recycling. The initiative provides income for unemployed youth and women while helping clean up the city and reduce waste.

As a way to combat unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to prevent further deforestation in Kenya, local rangers are using smartphones, satellite feeds, and global mapping to monitor their forests. The project employs more than 250 people and allows them to target vulnerable areas more effectively. Because of their efforts, there have been lower incidences of illegal logging and forest fires from poachers.

Germany is a world leader in recycling, specifically in the city of Kiel, which was recently declared a “zero waste” city. The city achieved this status through a series of eco-friendly initiatives, aimed at increasing recycling and reducing waste, from bans on single-use items to bottle buyback programs to simply encouraging locals to make more environmentally-friendly behavior changes.

Federal tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act and added incentives from the state of Colorado and its municipalities is drawing in clean energy companies, creating new jobs, and helping the state meet its decarbonization goals.

A digital marketplace called Trash Coin is increasing the amount of waste that gets recycled in Nigeria. People can find the nearest drop-off location on the company’s mobile app to exchange recyclables for payment vouchers. Payment is based on the weight of the waste and can be transferred to bank accounts or used to pay for services like electricity.

Alongside clean energy, wind farms built on property leased from locals in Nebraska are generating jobs, income, and local taxes that keep small towns like Petersburg afloat.