Coca-Cola Foundation partners FABE Foundation to fight plastic pollution in Nigeria

NIGERIA – The Coca-Cola Foundation has joined forces with FABE International Foundation in the fight against plastic pollution in Nigeria.    

Under the new partnership, FABE, with the funding support from the philanthropic arm of soft-drinks maker The Coca-Cola Company, will set up five #TidyNigeriaRecyclingHubs across Lagos State.

This partnership comes at a time when Nigeria produces 200,000 tons of plastic waste per year, two-thirds of which ends up in landfills, according to the Global Partnership for Action on Plastics (GPAP).

The project will be deployed in public places and homes “to achieve the goal of recovering 600 tons of plastic.

This will also encourage the sorting of household waste at source for a waste-free and CO2-free Lagos, notes Saadia Madsbjerg, President of The Coca-Cola Foundation.

“This grant will support local communities in Lagos to better manage waste as we collectively journey towards a zero-waste society, globally, one community at a time,” said Madsbjerg.

In addition, the initiative will focus on sustainable development and will ultimately empower women and provide self-employment for the youth in the city of Lagos where 21 million people live according to World Bank estimates.

Commenting on the initiative, Coca-Cola Nigeria’s Director of Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability, Nwamaka Onyemelukwe, said, “The Coca-Cola Foundation supports programs around the world that are entered on water, waste disposals and community well-being.

“This project which involves the whole community of VGC is to create awareness for people at home to start separating their wastes and thereby recycle them.”

Additionally, the partnership also aims to bring about a behavioural change in the communities such that they should stop tossing away bottles after consumption of drinks.

Temitope Okunnu, CEO of FABE International Foundations, added that the #TidyNigeria Recycling Drive is about bringing recycling hubs and collection centres close to the people.

The project is an addition to the multiple initiatives undertaken by the foundation in partnership with other stakeholders in the country in a bid to achieve its ambitious goal of collecting and recycling an equivalent of every bottle sold globally by 2030 under the ‘World Without Waste’ initiative.

In March, the company collaborated with Nigeria Climate Innovation Centre (NCIC) and launched a recycling program dubbed Cycle Plast Project.

The initiative aims to rid the West African country of 8,910 tons of plastic waste (water and yogurt bags, edible oil and laundry bottles, etc.) each year.

Launc of the project was followed by a collaboration between the foundation and Growing Business Foundation (GBF), a Non-profit organization in Nigeria, to strengthen the plastic waste management value chain through its Empowering Collectors Initiative (ECI).

The parties are set to run the programme for about 24 months, enhancing environmental resilience by preventing the flow of plastic waste, especially PET, to waterways and landfills through an aggressive and organised system that targets about 25,000 MT of waste.

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