Natural Eco Capital

The Eco Waste to Wealth project, a collaborative solution between Natural Eco Capital and two sub-national governments in Nigeria, aims to address plastic waste pollution which has caused both environmental, public health and socio-economic challenges. Using the concept of circular economy, the project stands to create a rethink of plastic waste as a resource and stimulate interest in recycling business to close the loop  of material use and its efficiency while providing decent green jobs for the unemployed and improving the lives of low-income earners through engagement as plastic waste collectors, waste aggregators, recycling plant workers and other associated services players in the supply chain of plastic waste recycling.

It is reported that the global production of plastic is 8.3 billion metric tons out of which 6.3 billion becomes waste, with only 9% recycled. A significant amount of the world’s plastics waste ends in the ocean. The developing countries are the worst source of plastics in the ocean due to inadequate waste management infrastructure. 

Increasing population, urbanization and industrialization have led to increased waste generation and waste composition complexity in our project communities. Inadequate waste infrastructure and inefficient waste management system to sustainably manage the waste is causing alarming environmental, social and health concerns. Significantly, plastics waste is a menace in these communities with a population of 4 million each, blocking drains and causing flooding which negatively impact lives, housing and food security as its potential to be re-introduced into manufacturing processes as feedstock is not harnessed. 

Further, the sub-national governments are faced with the challenge of unemployment for their citizenry.  Low level of awareness on waste recycling plays a major role in compounding the issue of plastic waste management in relation to the efficient utilization of resources.

The Eco Waste to Wealth project is a collaborative solution involving the partnership of Natural Eco Capital and the sub-national governments. It is birth out of the recognition by the sub-national governments that working together with a private sector will create an innovative solution and better output of its environmental policy and greener investment.

The solution is targeted at the unemployed youths, low-income earners, vulnerable group which include women and returnees (victim of illegal migration). We would be working with the sub-national governments to organize forum where awareness on the business aspect of waste recycling is raised to stimulate interest in recycling. Further, we will develop strategic education and awareness programme  as well as compliance mechanism to encourage public participation in recycling

Natural Eco Capital will be employing the concept of Circular Economy to engage the citizenry to rethink plastic waste as a resource which could be reintroduced into manufacturing processes for conversion into new product thus closing the loop of material cycle and reducing the need to landfill.   

With this concept, Natural Eco Capital will serve as the main aggregator of plastics waste materials to spur a private sector-led market driven plastic value chain development. The value chain identified include Waste Segregation and Storage, Collection, Sorting, Value Addition (which include construction and installation of machines for value addition) and, Conversion into new products. The project is structured into two phases; phase 1 is waste collection and aggregation while phase 2 is a conversion stage.  

The Model entails the aggregation of plastics waste materials from lead and micro aggregators into Natural Eco Plastics Recycling Centres. At the central hub, the plastics materials will pass through verification, weighing and sorting (manual) sections for proper quality and quantitative controls before being passed into the value addition section for processing. Activities in the value addition section will includePlastic Shredding, Grinding, Washing andPelletizing for off-takers.  

The materials could be crushed into flakes and extruded into pellets or passed on to offtakers in the flakes form or wet grinded and extruded into pellets depending on the type of plastic. The pellets will be packaged as industrial feeds for recycling companies.  

The Aggregation and Value addition process is slated for the phase one of the project. The plan is to gradually move into conversion in the phase two of the project.