Home-grown innovations on waste disposal and recycling is the focus on this week’s African Voices Game Changers, a documentary programme broadcast on the Cable News Network (CNN) and sponsored by Globacom.
The purveyors of the ideas to be featured on the latest episode of the programme are Bilikiss Adebiyi Abiola, 36, a Nigerian running a recycling company, and two Liberians: Abraham Freeman and Baccus Roberts, co-founders of Monrovia-based Environmental Rescue Initiative (ERI).
According to a vignette of the show released to Globacom, Abiola moved to the Fisk University in the United States of America after her first year in the University of Lagos to continue her education. From there she moved to Vanderbilt University where she earned a Master’s degree. She then worked at IBM for five years before moving to do a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to read Waste Management.
There she received the vision to begin a novel approach to recycling of waste by giving incentives for waste by the city dwellers. She returned to Lagos, Nigeria, a city which generates 9,000 metric tons of waste daily, in 2012 to co-found WeCyclers which collects recyclable materials from city households. The company employs at least 80 staff that use tricycles to collect garbage. Her work is contributing a great deal to making the Lagos environment cleaner.
A statement by Globacom said Abiola’s efforts had received copious mentions in the media in Nigeria, the United Kingdom, the United States and Germany. She has received grants from her alma mater, MIT, to further her research in waste management and won the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for sub-Saharan Africa.
“A preview of the show reveals also how Freeman and Roberts, two environmental health advocates, are challenging all Liberians and citizens of every nation to take up the gauntlet by ridding the environment of waste and innovatively generating revenue from the same source.
“What the two mavericks are doing is to remove trash from the streets of Monrovia using plastic components generated from the mountains of waste to fabricate paver bricks for construction. Each brick from the primary refuse dump where the ERI factory is located removes more than 666 plastics from the environment and has been adjudged to be stronger than other bricks made from conventional materials.
“CNN African Voices Changemakers is broadcast on DSTV on Friday at 8.30 a.m. and on Saturday at 11.30 p.m., 4.30 p.m. and 7.30 p.m. Other repeat broadcasts come up on Sunday at 4.00 a.m., 8.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. with more repeats on Monday and Tuesday at 4.30 a.m. and 65.30 p.m. respectively,” the statement concluded.
