This archive report was first published on 28 July 2019.
Less Trash, More Schools — One Plastic Brick at a Time ¶
Abidjan, Ivory Coast — July 28, 2019
Mariam Coulibaly, a 35-year-old mother of four, has been collecting trash on the streets of Abidjan for over 20 years. But she's not just doing it for the money; she's part of a project that's turning trash into plastic bricks to build schools across the country.
She and her fellow women, all members of the 'Fighting Women' community association, have been working with a Colombian company, Conceptos Plásticos, to convert plastic waste into an asset that will help them earn a decent living while cleaning up the environment and improving education.
They collect plastic waste from the streets, sort it, and sell it to middlemen at a recycling market in Abobo-Baoulé. The plastic is then recycled into chairs, sandals, and basins, and even bottles are washed, filled with juice, and resold on the street.
But the women's work is about to get a lot easier. A factory is being built in an Abidjan industrial park that will begin making plastic bricks locally, starting in the fall. The bricks will be used to build classrooms in schools across the country, including in the tiny village of Sakassou, where the children used to attend school in a traditional mud-brick and wood building.
‘This is ten times better,' said Joachim Koffi Konan, the school director in Sakassou, about the new plastic classrooms. ‘The interlocking bricks look like black and gray Legos. They are fire retardant and stay cool in hot weather.'
The project has the blessing of Kandia Camara, Ivory Coast's outspoken education minister, who says it can only lift women up. ‘For us, it's not a humiliating profession,' she said. ‘It is a job organized for them, their financial autonomy, their dignity, family, society, and their contribution to the development of the country.'
The project was the brainchild of Aboubacar Kampo, a medical doctor, who just ended a term as Ivory Coast representative for UNICEF. He recruited Conceptos Plásticos, a for-profit plastic recycling company with a social mission of building housing and creating jobs for poor people.
‘It had a big impact for us,' said Oscar Andrés Méndez, one of the founders of Conceptos Plásticos. ‘We were moved by the sight of women, carrying babies, picking up trash in Akouedo, a landfill notorious as a dumping site for hazardous waste.'
The couple moved to Abidjan in June to get the project up and running, and they are planning to expand into other parts of West Africa. They expect to employ 30 people at the factory and to buy plastic from about 1,000 women in its first year of operation.
‘We think there is a future in plastic,' said Ms. Coulibaly, the leader of the Fighting Women. ‘We are not just collecting trash; we are building a better future for ourselves and our children.'
