Wecyclers

Since becoming a Sidley client in 2016, Wecyclers has grown into a thriving waste recycling business serving more than 20,000 low-income households across Lagos, Nigeria. In addition to providing services to communities without access to formal waste collection, the company has created more than 150 jobs – many of which for youth and women.

Wecyclers works in partnership with the Lagos Waste Management Authority to utilize low-cost bicycle powered collection vehicles (“wecycles”) and motorized tricycles to collect plastic bottles, plastic bags, aluminum cans and other recyclable waste. The wecycles are designed and manufactured locally and are operated by youth from local communities.

The wecycle operators cover specific neighborhood collection routes to collect goods from households. At collection, the operators weigh each household’s materials and enter the total weight of recycled goods into the SMS points platform to automatically generate a personalized SMS. Wecyclers rewards households with redeemable points based on volume and quality of recyclables received.

Once the wecycles collect material from their routes they return to Wecyclers’ central processing hub. At the hub, Wecyclers aggregates materials to further process by baling, shredding and re-bagging and then selling to recyclers.

As households accumulate points over time, they can redeem for specific rewards depending on their level of participation. These rewards include basic household items, electronics, cash and sponsored prizes making the benefits of recycling tangible. http://www.wecyclers.com/