Ishara

Unlocking the power of plastic recycling with a digital collection system and app rewards.

Over 20 million people on this planet are feeding on plastics. 

In Ghana, seafood provides approximately 60 percent of the animal protein in most diets. Unfortunately, the recent surge in single-use plastics dumped in the country's major water bodies and coastal lines has "plasticized" this animal protein. According to the National Library of Medicine, 68 percent of fish caught from the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana, was highly contaminated with microplastics. All of them had, at least, traces of macroplastics in their guts and intestines. This puts Ghanaians, who enjoy seafood delicacies, at a high risk of contracting diseases, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders to cancer.

This plastic pollution problem is not just a growing health hazard but a rising socio-economic concern. Fisherfolks have reported catching more plastics than fish, and flooding events across major cities in the country keep escalating because the drains are heavily choked with single-use plastics. 

Interestingly, Ghana is a hub of local recycling companies and startups that actually need this plastic waste as feed for their operations. However, the country's waste collection and management systems are a total mess, forcing most recyclers to depend on informal waste pickers to handpick plastic from trash systems and landfills. Not only is this strategy ineffective, these waste pickers, primarily women living below the poverty line, get exposed to various health hazards while on the job. Even worse, they receive meager wages because they have little visibility into the market price for what they've collected, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen who currently connect them to the recycling companies.

Many existing recycling programs also only focus on what to do with the plastic waste they receive from waste collectors. While finding innovative ways to reuse, recycle or upcycle plastic waste is good, these programs fail to recognize that the major barrier to solving the plastic problem in Ghana is the non-formalized, unstable waste collection system and processes. 

There's hardly any waste segregation in most dumping sites. Every type of waste, including plastics, is dumped into one bin or container, making it challenging to access plastics. The current system is also not only inefficient but excludes the average plastic user from the entire recycling process; there's little to no education on segregation, so even when rare recycling interventions are deployed, they are short-lived because the public is not equipped to use them.   

A 2020 report from Ghana's Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation found that 82% of plastics in Ghana could be recovered and recycled using existing technologies, generating GHC 2 billion (about 193 million USD) worth of recycled goods and creating 5 million jobs. 

From this, it is clear that proper plastic recovery is the first significant step towards a healthier coexistence for all members of our shared ecosystem - from fish to families.

Ishara is a platform that connects the plastic user directly to local recyclers by incentivizing plastic waste recycling. We achieve this mission through a mobile app for plastic users on which plastic waste is accepted as currency (IshCoins), which can be exchanged for daily essentials and products. Ishara replaces indiscriminate plastic disposal with a well-monitored, transparent system for plastic collection.

Every ounce of plastic is valuable to us; on the app, users can request waste pick-up or locate the nearest collection point where they can recycle their plastics for our IshCoins, no matter the type or quantity they have. 

And the waste picker's job gets better. Once registered on our platform, they instantly connect to the thousands of plastic users around them. With their identifiable sacks, they collect plastics from our users at our collection points, issue IshCoins after weighing the collected plastic, and drop off the collected waste at our various collection houses. They are then instantly paid for every gram of plastic collected once the drop-off is approved.

Local recyclers who register for our services now have the option for monthly and annual subscription plan packages where Ishara consistently supplies the tons of raw materials they need for their operations in a cleaner, better-segregated way.

We also seek to have the highest possible environmental impact, so unlike the competition, no plastic collected is useless or non-reusable. Through our partnerships with various local upcycling industries like Green EcoWorks and Reecoplast Ghana, even one of the hardest to recycle and most methane-emitting plastic LDPE is upcycled into long-lasting furniture and pavement bricks sold for domestic use. 

Ishara seeks to close the existing gap in many plastic recycling industries across developing nations, starting with Ghana.

Currently, most plastic users are alienated from the entire recycling process. There are either not enough segregation systems to help them recycle or they simply do not know what, how, and where to recycle. With Ishara’s digitized collection system, users can easily recycle from the palm of their hand, all while remaining updated with current recycling statistics and happenings in the plastic industry. And with the strategy of incentivizing every ounce of plastic, users will have a compelling incentive to recycle, avoiding trash fees and earning benefits for protecting the environment. By interviewing university students, we have found that young, educated people living in urban areas are particularly enthusiastic about helping the environment. This makes them the ideal demographic to market our app. In the long run, Ishara hopes to serve plastic users from all walks of life. 

Waste picking is one primary means of survival for many poor, urban communities across developing countries. In Ghana, 12 percent of the plastics generated daily are collected by waste pickers. These environmental heroes, about 60% women, trek miles of distance, sorting through millions of trash just to earn a keep. However, the non-formalized nature of this industry renders most pickers vulnerable to exploitation by middlemen who currently connect them to recycling companies. This current system also provides little to no visibility into the market price for waste picking, making it difficult for governmental agencies to intervene or support waste pickers. As such, digitizing this system will ensure constant free access to the average prices for different plastic materials, thus eliminating the exploitation of many waste pickers and providing data that the government could use to monitor wages and support pickers. By reducing plastic disposal and connecting most plastic users on a mobile app, waste pickers will no longer have to walk long distances exposing themselves to various health hazards to work; they can access the millions of plastics around them and work efficiently with just their mobile phones.

A significant portion of the 5 percent of plastics that are recycled in Ghana gets sold to foreign exporters, leaving many local recyclers struggling to maintain their operations. Our digitized collection system targets the local recycling community by connecting them with tons of collected waste in a cleaner, better-segregated way. This will go a long way in stabilizing the market and providing equal access to raw plastic materials for most local recyclers.

Rather than bringing in something totally new to scrape off emerging systems, we will act as the connector. From plastic users to waste pickers to recyclers and back to the user, Ishara aims to efficiently create and maintain a circular economy where no one is left behind in the plastic fight.

A group of three impact-driven individuals forms the foundation of the Ishara initiative. From growing up in a squalid environment to selling waste plastics and scraps to earn a keep, our diverse backgrounds and personal stories have formed in us a strong passion for waste management, climate protection, and sustainability. Together this passion is even stronger.

The idea of tackling the issue of plastic waste pollution by digitizing the collection process was fueled by the Team lead, Akorfa Dagadu.

Growing up in one of Ghana's most polluted environments, Agbogbloshie, she has experienced firsthand the severe impacts of waste mismanagement. This drives her motivation to find innovative ways to transform our world; She served as a project manager for two years for a local sustainability project, Effishient, which uses waste plastic bottles to build a hydroponics system for planting vegetables to supplement the school feeding program of rural communities in Ghana to help reduce malnutrition. As such, she has experience in project management and its related areas. She was also a 2021 UNAI Millenium Fellow and is currently an undergraduate at MIT and a Priscilla King Gray Fellow.

Our product developer David Nintang is a self-driven individual eager to apply his tech skills to achieve social impact in every way possible. He led the development team that built Ghana's first virtual-learning platform for deaf students during the COVID pandemic and runs a free coding program that trains local small-scale businesses in underserved communities on applying technology to facilitate a practical understanding of their work. Having once picked waste plastics and scraps to earn a keep, David has experienced firsthand the struggles of waste pickers and is determined to use his skill sets to change the current status quo.

Isabella Tasset is a world bachelor in business student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. She has worked in diverse global teams to develop innovative business solutions for urgent environmental challenges. While studying at the University of Southern California last year, she joined a consulting project that helped restore a watershed in Guerrero, Mexico. Leading the team to develop a successful partnership database and funding strategy for the project fueled her passion for sustainability rooted in the wisdom of local communities. She is determined to use her business background to help Ishara grow and support the local recycling community in Ghana.

Our community partner, Emmanuella Bemah Appiah, is the founder and CEO of the local Ghanaian recycling company Green Ecoworks, which upcycles plastic waste into furniture. Emmanuella has worked in this industry for over five years and thus has extensive connections with the Ghanaian local recycling community.

With our open minds, unique skill sets, and dedication, we foresee a future with plastic waste as a resource, not a menace.

We are ideal for this project because, to us, Ishara is more than a project; it's our legacy.

We have conducted our primary research to understand the pain points of our target group across all three customer segments. Through surveys and interviews, we have reached over 200 potential app users, 5 waste pickers, and 6 recycling companies within the Kumasi metropolitan area in 6-8 months. While at it, we worked with Green EcoWorks Ghana during their advocacy campaign, "Don't Waste the Waste (DWTWI)." Here, we got to engage with 15 more waste pickers and local recyclers to better understand their pain points and needs. 

Our secondary research is underway, aiming to test our mobile prototype through a double-pronged strategy on recycling incentivization and recording select user feedback. For this, we have onboard 20 volunteers (potential app users) from our target demographic  who are working with us in designing and testing the prototype.

There have been many attempts to solve plastic pollution in Ghana by efficiently converting plastic waste into recycled products. Recycling companies are selling everything from bags to bricks, but many are operating at less than half capacity due to a lack of supply.

Ishara approaches the problem from an entirely different part of the value chain. We do not convert plastics ourselves, but instead connect plastic users to existing local recycling companies by incentivising plastic waste recycling. While app-based reward systems are not a new technology, we're applying it in a new location where youth recycling habits are the key to unlocking a circular plastic economy. By leveraging our target demographic’s smartphone-loving tech-savviness and analyzing user data over time to improve functionality, Ishara will redefine what digital currency means for Ghana.

As more people recycle through Ishara, recycling companies will receive a larger volume of plastic material. This is a critical catalyst for further innovation in the recycling industry because recycling companies need more material in order to grow. We envision a Ghana where, instead of fighting for the few scraps of plastic waste that get recycled, local recycling companies operate at a capacity limited only by their own ingenuity in developing new recycling methods.

Ishara aims to create tangible positive impact for multiple stakeholders. Our goals are:

1.Connect young Ghanians with local recycling companies, forging plastics recycling into a lifelong habit. With the funding provided by Solv[ED], Ishara will be able to increase waste segregation rates among our target demographic by 20% in the first year. This is an imperative development in the short-term to curb the devastating effects of the annual rise in plastic pollution. Further, Ishara aims for an app user retention rate of 90%, with user engagement at least once a week. This is a very important metric for Ishara because we see habitual plastic recycling as a catalyst for broader sustainable lifestyle changes. Ishara will create this impact through a constant iterative process, where every app feature keeps the user engaged and enthusiastic about plastic recycling. Our app will also include spotlights on other innovators in the recycling space and resources with ways to incorporate sustainability in daily life.

2. Create transparent economic opportunities for waste collectors in the informal sector. In our first year, Ishara will work with 5 waste collectors working in or around our target communities to develop efficient ways for them to collect plastic waste from our users. This way, we can facilitate a greater volume of segregated plastics collection in healthier, fairer working conditions. Ishara has already begun conducting interviews with female waste collectors in Kumasi, Ghana. Our next step will be to combine our expertise and that of Solv[ED] with the decades of wisdom these waste collectors have acquired to design a collections logistics system that benefits both Ishara and local waste collectors. 

3. Collaborate with local recycling companies to help them survive, innovate, and grow in the rapidly developing plastics recycling industry. In our first year, Ishara will divert 100 tons of plastic from landfills and sell them to our recycling center partners. Supplying local recycling companies with plastic material has become increasingly critical as many foreign recycling companies are crowding out the market. A significant portion of the 5 percent of plastic that is recycled in Ghana gets sold to Chinese exporters instead of supplying the local recycling companies who depend on this material.

To address this problem and catalyze further growth in the industry, we will selectively supply to local recycling companies and startups whose missions align with our own,  such as Green Ecoworks Ghana. We are also open to developing synergies with members of the Solv[ED] community who are innovating plastic recycling methods. Ishara will develop a customer relationship strategy that embraces the industry-wide impact that we and our partner recycling companies can create together.

The Ishara mobile app will back the collection and incentivizing processes at Ishara. We will build the multi-sided app with a concentration on intuitiveness and simplicity of design to ensure lower learning curves for our app users. To ensure easy access too, we will build the app using React Native so that our app becomes available on android, iOS, and the web. 

Our waste collectors would record, upload, and track their waste collection data on the mobile app. They would record data such as plastic user's IshID (Ishara Identifier), the weight of plastic waste segregated, and the time of collection. These requirements would further allow our waste collectors to provide encrypted QR Codes that our plastic users can scan from their side of the app and seamlessly receive their value of the plastic waste in IshCoins.

With the tap of a "Request Collection" button, our plastic users can place notifications for our waste collectors to conveniently and economically collect their segregated plastics. Users could also locate the nearest Ishara collection points and exchange their waste for IshCoins. 

To truly tap into the value of plastic waste, our plastic users can redeem their ishCoins into digital rewards such as data bundles and airtime or withdraw as cash into their mobile wallets. The redeeming processes will be made possible when we implement online payment gateways such as Paystack, providing tens of payment options for our users to redeem their rewards. 

On the app, we will also provide a news feed feature to further enlighten our app users by delivering content related to recycling and sustainability in Ghana and beyond. This will ensure that we keep our app users updated and encourage them to continue recycling.

To reach our target demographic of young, environmentally conscious students, we plan to pilot our app on university campuses. We have a waitlist of 277 people who have registered their interest, many from universities such as University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Upon acquiring our target funding with assistance from MIT Solv[ED] in the first year, we will be able to serve:

• 500 app users, who will benefit from app-based rewards and an easy gateway into sustainable living.

• 5 local waste collectors, many of whom are women living in poverty and depend upon income from plastics collection.

• 3 local plastic recycling companies, whose businesses depend on strong supplier relationships and a reliable supply of well-segregated plastic material

Ishara is starting small to start a movement. We have seen how tiny habit changes like recycling plastic instead of throwing it in the streets lead to larger mindset shifts over time, especially as these changes spread throughout the community. Ishara will indirectly serve everyone who depends on clean water and microplastics-free air - in other words, everyone.

It is imperative that Ishara launches as soon as possible to grow from the momentum which is already underway to push for a greener Ghana, as the government recently became the first African country to join World Economic Forum’s Global Plastic Action Partnership. The sooner Ishara launches, the better we can take advantage of the market opportunity in Ghana and beyond.

Barrier

How Solv[ED] can help Ishara overcome this barrier

A need for logistics expertise. Implementing and fine-tuning our plan for physical collection, transportation, storage, and sorting of plastic waste will require more experience and testing.

By connecting with logistics experts from the MIT Solve community, we will combine their guidance and our understanding of the local context to design and implement an effective logistics system. In turn, we will be able to share this experience with other Solvers and draw on Solv[ed] mentorship resources to adapt our system as Ishara grows.

Web application development costs. To keep track of transactions and recycling rewards, a large share of financial investment must go into building our online system and enhancing it as we collect more data.

The funding from Solv[ED] will help us invest in developing the Ishara app. Specifically, the HP Create What’s Next Prize would be an ideal source of funding for enhancing our app user’s experience to increase recycling and retention rates.

Time to convince stakeholders to shift to a new approach. An integral part of our business will be building relationships with app users, waste collectors, and recycling companies so that they grow comfortable with our results-driven innovation. This will take time and a deep understanding of stakeholder needs.

One way to reduce the hesitancy about recycling with Ishara is to legitimize our brand through media exposure from MIT Solve. As we publish more of our results, we can spend less time trying to get customers and partners on board and more time cultivating fruitful stakeholder relationships.

Emmanuella Bemah Appiah, the CEO of Green Ecoworks Ghana, is our main partner. Green Ecoworks is a local startup in Ghana that produces furniture using plastic waste, as such, Ms. Appiah serves as the link to potential partners and aggregators in the plastic recycling industry. Also, as a member of the sustainability board in the department of natural resources in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Ghana, Ms.Appiah is responsible for connecting Ishara to this university community.

Ishara’s key value proposition is to connect plastic users with local recycling companies by incentivizing plastic waste recycling. We serve app users who are motivated by a desire to contribute positively to the environment, generating impact in the form of higher recycling rates. Users benefit from the convenience of recycling from their phone, earning digital rewards in the process. Our second beneficiary, waste collectors, want safe and sanitary working conditions and fair and transparent economic opportunities. Waste collectors who register with Ishara will be able to earn money by collecting plastics from our app users instead of taking on the hazards of landfill picking and the risks of exploitation from traditional aggregators. 

We generate both social and economic value for our customers, local recycling companies, by selling them the plastics we collect. The size of this market is about 25 companies with a total capacity of 320 tons per day. The total market for recycled plastic waste in Ghana is expected to grow in the coming years with the opening of a new plastic bottle recycling plant with an annual operating capacity of 30,000 tons. Ishara provides a unique value for these companies because the plastics we collect are cleaner and better segregated than plastics picked from the streets or landfills. Also, our digitized collection system will enable us to provide our customers with impact metrics and a steady supply of material. 

Other key stakeholders for Ishara include recycling NGOs, universities, and the government. We are actively pursuing partnerships with groups such as Recycle Up! Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in order to more effectively serve our target populations. The Ghanaian government currently spends $3.5 million on waste management costs and even more on the health ramifications of microplastics in the air we breathe and food we eat. In the long term, Ishara will create societal value by reducing these costs through a more effective plastic waste collection system and through educating and encouraging better recycling habits. We can leverage this aspect of value creation through partnerships with public institutions such as Ghana’s ministry of environment, science, technology and innovation (METSI.)

In addition to building partnerships and managing the logistics of plastic collection and sale, other key activities for achieving our value proposition include software development and analyzing user data. Our key resources include the Ishara platform, our impact brand, app rewards, plastic material, logistics infrastructure such as collection equipment, plastic collectors, our administrative team, and seed funding from competitions including MIT Solv[ED].

Ishara’s revenue model is embedded into our mission. Our business activities are designed to create social impact while also generating revenue. 

Our revenue sources include:

• Sale of collected plastics

• Sale of impact metrics

• University funding

• Plastic credits

Our major expenses will be:

• App development

• App rewards system

• Plastics collection logistics

We are currently conducting market research to collect data for our budget and financial model. Because our ability to supply recycling companies depends on where, when, and how much plastic we collect, one of our key success factors will be adapting our model in response to data on the recycling habits of app users.