Wecyclers, a social enterprise originating from MIT, aims to offer a sustainable solution to developing urban area waste collection issues.
Wecyclers will provide households in low-income communities with a valuable recycling option for their recyclable materials using a fleet of low-cost cargo bicycles to offer convenient household recycling service in densely populated low-income neighbourhoods.
These low-cost vehicles (wecycles, recently showcased at Maker Faire Africa 2012) are run by former waste pickers who will work as micro franchisees. The aggregate materials from across all the wecycles are then further processed and sold into secondary markets at premium pricing (versus loose, unprocessed material).
Wecyclers aims to motivate families to recycle plastic bottles, plastic sachets and aluminium by introducing an SMS-based point platform to provide them with updates on recycling schedules, tally points and to also provide point updates.
For every kilogram of material that families recycle with Wecyclers, they receive redeemable Wecycles points over their cell phones in return. Households can redeem their accumulated points for medical necessities, school supplies or social goods.
By 2017, Wecyclers hope to have over 750 wecyclers diverting over 32,000 metric tonnes of waste from landfills into recycling value-chains.
Wecyclers have begun by targeting the neighbourhood of Itire, Lagos with a population of over one million people. Since launching on August 9th, 2012, they have engaged almost 500 households and plan to have over 1,000 households registered for the duration of the pilot.
[Image via Wecyclers.com]
