News – Blog
29 October 2021
In the time it takes you to count from one to sixty, one million plastic drinking bottles are purchased around the world.
With the majority of this plastic intended for single-use, plastic bottles and caps are among the top five most common litter collected in coastal cleanups. Collectively, the plastic that ends up in our oceans every year is proportionate to dumping an entire rubbish truck into the ocean every minute.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s most highly populated regions, there has been a burgeon in single-use plastic over the past decade and this is set to triple over the next 30 years, clogging the continent’s marine ecosystem and highly contributing to global waste mismanagement.
While the continent is recycling only 4% out of a pool of up to 80% of recyclable waste, is recycling the only answer?
Recycling has often been the most publicised action in the hierarchy of waste management. However, there exists an alternative – upcycling – that not only reduces the amount of plastic waste that ends up in landfills and water bodies, but also turns plastic products that would have otherwise gone to waste into higher quality outputs.
By harnessing the power of innovation and creativity, people around Sub-Saharan Africa have taken it upon themselves to turn waste into treasure through upcycling. In a bid to shine a spotlight on how residents across the region are repurposing plastic into household items, Challenge Works partnered with Google Task Mate, and asked individuals across Kenya to share their plastic DIY adaptations.
From water tanks into plant pots, to plastic bottles into home decor, and jerry cans into water dispensers, there is so much environmental, social and economic value that can be derived from upcycling. Not only is it more affordable than purchasing new items, it also uses significantly less energy to produce, causes little to no environmental pollution, and promotes responsible consumption and production in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Our mission for Task Mate is to address the prevailing challenge of finding supplemental income in these trying times; that by helping to connect opportunities between organizations and individuals in a simplified crowdsourcing platform, organizations such as Challenge Works are able to promote social and environmental good while people earn extra cash by helping them.
Now, it is your turn to get creative! As inspired by the ingenuity of our taskers, we are calling on you to play your part in creating a greener and cleaner environment by giving your plastic bottles a new lease of life. But your chance to make change does not stop there.
Challenge Works, in collaboration with the Government of Canada, is excited to share that Strand 2: Creating Solutions of the Afri-Plastics Challenge is now live! If you have a new or early-stage product, technology and/or service to encourage the reduction or elimination of plastic usage across Sub-Saharan Africa, be the first to apply and stand a chance to win a grant towards your solution.
Applications are now closed
