Niger: Transforming plastic waste into school benches

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00:00Mohamed Tia Sidi takes real pride in his sorting center of Dagamet where he gives a second life

00:06to plastic trash that is polluting this city of Agadez. Here 11 people are employed and hundreds

00:12have found temporary jobs collecting plastic waste and recycling it. The main goal is to turn the

00:18trash into school benches and make up for a shortage of traditional material that is getting

00:24harder to bring into Niger but for OCD business still hasn't kicked off. Unfortunately despite

00:33everything we've done there's still a lack of commands that will allow us to value those 130

00:39tons of plastic waste that you can see over there. That's why we are calling the authorities and our

00:51partners to consider integrating our production or recycled school benches in their commands.

01:02Mohamed Tia Sidi hopes to strike a deal with the government to furnish dozens of schools in

01:07Niger but hasn't succeeded as yet. However the sorting center has taken some use out of unemployment.

01:16I learned this job right here. When I came to Agadez it was hard to find a job.

01:22At first it wasn't easy but I finally handled the whole process. Today I'm taking care of the

01:27newcomers training. A few kilometers away the Ibrahim Umaru primary school receives local plastic made

01:35school benches a real benefit. Since the border between Benin and Niger is closed the main road used

01:41for imports is no longer available. We're heavily supporting this local initiative to provide school

01:49desks. This is a solution for students still sitting on the ground. The problem is partly solved with the

01:56innovation of recycled plastic school benches. Before that we were throwing plastic trash in the garbage.

02:03A solution that tackles the growing spread of plastic waste which is so common across Africa.

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