Alexander Akhigbe holds forte with the Africa CleanUp Initiative

Alexander Akhigbe is an environmentalist and social entrepreneur who founded the African CleanUp Initiative (ACI), a non-profit organization focused on promoting environmental sustainability and community development within the Ajegunle area and, by extension, Lagos state, Nigeria. The synergistic collaboration between the organization, the people, and the government has greatly impacted waste collection and is helping keep Lagos clean.

By Bem Abubaker

Akhigbe grew up in Lagos State but was born in Benin, Edo State, Nigeria in 1989. He received his bachelor’s degree in Geography and Planning from the University of Lagos in 2012 and following graduation, he worked as a Field Coordinator for the Women’s Health and Action Research Centre (WHARC), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women’s health and rights in Nigeria. After witnessing environmental degradation, Akhigbe decided it was time he would establish the African Cleanup Initiative (ACI) and went on to do so in 2015.

Under his leadership, ACI has up to today, grown to become one of Africa’s leading environmental organizations, boasting presence in Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Cameroon, Kenya, and Tanzania, as well as significant expansion potential in other African countries.

The Africa Youth Awards named Akhigbe one of the 100 Most Influential Young Africans in 2019. He was also given the Nigeria Green Award for his contributions to Nigeria’s environmental sustainability, giving credit to his commitment to promoting environmentally sustainable practices and empowering young people to act on environmental issues.

Rolling out the RecyclesPay Educational Project

The RecyclesPay Educational Project is an eco-friendly innovation by ACI that allows parents living in low-income communities to pay school fees for their children using recyclables, also giving schools the same opportunity to use recyclable materials such as plastic bottles, cans, cartons, glass bottles, and papers, to address their financial challenges.

The innovative project was born out of the need to tackle two pressing issues simultaneously: plastic pollution and educational inequality. By incentivizing individuals to collect and exchange plastic for cash, not only is plastic waste reduced, but it also provides access to education for children in the Ajegunle community. The ACI participates in cleanup projects, public awareness campaigns, and advocacy work in local communities to further emphasize the value of recycling and environmental cleanliness.

This drive of exchanging plastic for funds to send children in vulnerable communities to school has had a significant impact on the communities where it operates. Since the launch of the RecyclesPay project in these communities, it has been adopted in over 100 schools (both private and public); 3000+ pupils have directly benefited from this program; and over 83 tons of recyclables have been recovered. This initiative is helping children stay in school, with new students also being enrolled and gain access to academic materials. Some schools have been able to use this program to maintain school infrastructure and acquire teaching materials.

Measuring effectiveness and impact

The impact of this initiative over time is measured with the aid of some monitoring tools such as questionnaires, recorded data, attendance sheets, interviews, feedback forms, and the delivery of monthly impact reports. These monitoring tools help ensure accurate numbers of children enrolled or retained in schools (both male and female), the number of participating schools and communities that have been impacted, the number of households that have been reached through sensitization and are practicing recycling, as well as the number of recyclables recovered from the environment.

Thus far, this project has been very effective because it has helped shape the culture of improper waste disposal in some communities who now believe in the value that can be gotten from waste, thus helping reduce the negative effect of plastic waste. Presently the program is being replicated in various communities, and is believed to soon illustrate further tangible benefits within the Lagos State, Anambra, as well as Enugu after its most recent launch in other states beyond Lagos.

83215.4kg of recyclable waste has been prevented from entering local seas and landfills, as well as helping communities collect waste that would have otherwise blocked drainage systems and caused flooding. This milestone is huge! Over 8,000 people in different communities (adults and children included) have adopted the culture of recycling, which is now seen as a means to reduce pollution and generate income for themselves. It has also created opportunities to talk about the work ACI is doing on big stages and its impact, as well as recycling, on social platforms, which has helped reach over 20,000 audiences, including people from different African countries.

There are individuals who work with ACI today because they have seen the impact of their work and have gone on to donate too. In turn, they have received training while at it, some have gotten internships that have opened them to other opportunities like supporting their startups, and mentorship too.

Sustaining RecyclePay’s ambitions

This project is mostly sustained through donations, as some organizations and individuals donate their recyclables to help support schools, keep the project running, and children in school. Grants also help to scale up the program, for example, the Coca-Cola Foundation grant helped to scale the program from 10 schools in 2018/2019 to over 50 schools in 2020/2021. The government provides endorsement support for the project to run in public schools, awarding students additional access to academic materials, maintain the school infrastructure and source teaching materials as well. Simultaneously, head teachers are excited that their school benefits from the donations of well-wishers too because, as they can pay teachers and still maintain the school structure.