Waste aggregators take delivery of baling machines under coca-cola’s cycleplast project

In partnership with the Nigeria Climate Innovation Centre (NCIC), Coca-Cola has delivered baling machines to six regional PET waste aggregators, to intensify its waste recovery efforts in Nigeria.

The recycling-focused project, Cycleplast, was launched in April 2022 to engender positive waste disposal behaviors that will help reduce the amount of plastic waste that end up in landfills and waterways across the country.

To ensure project success, it was important to involve unemployed youths, women, and PET collectors in all six of the nation’s regions. This led to a partnership with six (6) waste aggregators affiliated with the Recyclers Association of Nigeria, including eTrash2Cash in Kano State, Shibac Ventures in Adamawa State, Vicfold Recyclers in Kwara State, Alamonk Recyclers Ltd in Abia State, Natural Eco Capital in Edo.

While the Nigeria Climate Innovation Centre (NCIC) has championed PET recovery and behavioral change campaigns in harmony with its mandate, the project was launched through funding from The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF), the philanthropic arm of the total beverage company, Coca-Cola.

With the delivery of six baling machines (one for each region), Coca-Cola continues to reinforce its mandate to promote a World Without Waste through a three-pronged strategic approach: to rethink its packaging design through innovation, make recycling more accessible to achieve 100% collection by 2030, and partner with like-minded organizations focused on improving the plastic waste value chain.

Reports indicate that Nigeria generates over 40 million tons of waste every year, out of which over 3 million tons is PET waste. To reverse this trend, the Cycleplast project seeks to significantly leverage and empower the informal waste collection sector with resources to improve their collection and processing capacity, enabling the recycling of food-grade PET in line with the Coca-Cola Company’s aspiration to make bottles with an average of 50% recycled content by 2030.

This will integrate the informal sector into the formal sector, creating a viable value chain for plastic waste recycling.

In executing the Cycleplast project, Coca-Cola has prioritized job creation as a vehicle and source of empowerment for the women and youths actively engaged in PET recovery. The project target requires about 990 waste collectors from the six geopolitical zones to deliver 743 tons per month and a cumulative amount of 8,910 tons per year. So far, the project has recovered 1,487.26 tons of PET waste, with the goal to achieve more with these provided resources.