By Ayomide Otitoju
FABE International Foundation has taken project #TidyNigeria one-step further.
With funding from the Coca-Cola Foundation, FABE International Foundation will be establishing five (5) #TidyNigeriaRecyclingHubs across Lagos State, Nigeria. This validates our Foundation’s goal to Create a Zero Waste Nigeria one community at a time.
Plastic pollution has been a major issue in Lagos, Nigeria being a coastal city. Some of the impacts people face due to improper sorting and disposal of waste are flooding, diseases, loss of lives and properties. An estimate of 8.3 billion tons of plastics have been produced since the 1950s but more than half either end
up in our dumpsite or oceans making them super difficult to recover or recycle.
FABE has developed an innovative recovery strategy known as the #TidyNigeriaRecyclingDrive that will educate, sensitise, promote more recovery, and encourage households and communities to subscribe to the intentional and proper sorting of waste from source in exchange for value.
Speaking on the initiative, President of The Coca-Cola Foundation, Saadia Madsbjerg, noted that The Foundation supports grassroot initiatives that build resilience of communities to properly manage their waste streams. According to her, “This grant will support local communities in Lagos to better manage waste as we collectively journey towards a zero waste society, globally, one community at a time.
Speaking on the initiative, Nwamaka Onyemelukwe, Director of Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability, said Coca-Cola Foundation supports programmes around the world that are centred on water, waste disposals and community well-being. Hence, this project which involves the whole community of VGC is to create awareness for people at home to start separating their wastes and thereby recycle them.
According to Amaka, Coca-Cola’s aspiration is to ensure that every bottle being put in the market is recovered and recycled into another bottle; that’s why Coca-Cola Foundation is supporting the FABE project. She said that this phase is targeted to cover five estates, and five more estates are going to be replicated in other communities, with the aim to ensure that everyone in the community participates.
She said, “We want to make sure that anyone who brings in separated wastes (pet bottles and cans) for recycling in these drop-off centres are rewarded with cash incentives. We are using this to empower women and youths within the communities and to create awareness for people so that less wastes end up in our drainage and oceans. Also, we are using this to help the livelihood of people living in the
community, so that they can realise that plastic bottles are not total waste after-all, and the end result is to create a healthy environment for everyone. Our partnership with FABE Foundation is such that it gets to every community within the State, not just eyebrow areas. We want to ensure that a total of 600 metric tonnes of plastic wastes are recovered by the end of the project, and we would also ensure that we are present in these communities even at the end of the project.”
