The Recycling Scheme for Women and Youth Empowerment (RESWAYE), an environmental sustainability and women empowerment initiative, sponsored by The CocaCola Foundation, has recovered about 159,000kg plastic waste in Ibeju Lekki.
The project, executed by implementing partners, the Mental and Environmental Development Initiative for Children (MEDIC), to drive environmental protection, marine conservation, and women empowerment, was launched in 2020, following concerns around Nigeria’s increasingly polluted shorelines and coastal lines.
Nigeria is reported to generate 32 million tonnes of plastic waste every year with the majority ending up in landfills, beaches, and other water bodies. Through the initiative, Coca-cola sought to tackle this challenge while ensuring women’s economic empowerment within the target communities.
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As a result, the initiative was incentivised, providing low-income communities in the Ibeju Lekki area with an opportunity to earn an income while ensuring marine and environmental conservation.
After 18 months of enlisting women and young people in the plastic buy-back scheme across 16 coastal communities in Ibeju Lekki, the project recorded an impressive numbers as over 2000 women and youth empowered economically, and 2,124 households impacted; resulting in over 13,000 direct and indirect beneficiaries.
Nwamaka Onyemelukwe, director, public affairs, communications and sustainability, Coca-cola Nigeria Limited, said there is a need for corporations to scale up efforts at alleviating Nigeria’s plastic waste problem.
“At Coca-cola, we are aware of the devastating implications of climate change on our environment, health and economy at large. The RESWAYE project was developed to combat this looming problem, and I am pleased with what we have achieved over the past 18 months,” said Onyemelukwe.
According to Onyemelukwe, partnering with credible NGOS such as MEDIC, helped developed an effective recycling system that met the unique needs of the Ibeju Lekki communities; making recycling more accessible to everyone while also ensuring the economic empowerment of women and youth.
She posits that the RESWAYE project is in line with Coca-cola’s “World Without Waste” mandate which fosters collaboration with multiple stakeholders, including partners, governments, and civil society organisations like MEDIC, in reducing carbon footprint.
Onyemelukwe assures that Coca-cola will continue to work with communities to better understand their recycling and collection challenges while engendering a recycling culture amongst residents. “By 2030, Coca-cola also aims to help collect and recycle a bottle or can for every one sold by the company,” she stated.
