Hello readers, Welcome to #CircularTuesday on CleanbuildVoices!

Nigeria is one of the largest producers of solid waste in Africa, with Lagos, the second fastest-growing city in Africa, generating about 10,000 tons of waste per day.

The country receives also about 71,000 tons of second-hand consumer goods as imports.

To solve the increasing waste crisis in Nigeria, a number of startups are stepping up to the challenge and one of such startups is RecyclePoints.

RecyclePoints is Nigeria’s foremost waste recycling and social benefit venture that has developed a point-based incentive model to collect waste materials like pure water sachets (PWS), PET plastic bottles (PET), used beverage cans (UBC), glass bottles (GBS), old newspapers (ONP), and brown corrugated cartons (BCC) from registered post-consumers who it then rewards with points, which when accrued, can be used to redeem household items and cash.

Points are allocated based on a Points Earning Chart where the quantity of items is equated to the number of points earned.

That way, the startup empowers low-income communities to recycle and be rewarded with real value for their waste.

RecyclePoints collects and processes the recyclables that are collected at its Collection and Sorting HUBs (CoSoHUB) and then sells them to manufacturing and recycling plants that use the items for new materials.

Through this, RecyclePoints has created over 50 jobs in Nigeria out of which about 80% of them are occupied by women.

RecyclePoints currently runs 4 recycling initiatives which are:

• iRecycle Network targeted at individuals. Recyclable materials are exchanged for household items.
• WastePicker Initiative targeted at individuals. Recyclable materials are exchanged for cash.
• Corporate Recycling targeted at corporate establishments.
• Schools Recycling – targeted at academic establishments.

iRecycle Program

Subscribers under the iRecycle Program exchange their recyclable items for “Points” which accumulates over time.

At the point of collection/drop-off, the recyclable items are counted and points earned. The subscribers can then use the points to redeem valuable household items from the iRecycle Store.

WastePickers Initiative

Under the WastePickers Initiative (WPI), subscribers exchange their recyclable items for cash rewards that are calculated according to the weight of materials being recycled.

Each type of material recycled has a price per kilogram. The cash rewards are paid into subscribers’ bank accounts.