Waste To Wealth Managers Tell Inspiring Tales On Glo-sponsored African Voices

Bilikiss Adebiyi Abiola

The need to rescue the ecosystem from further degradation is the concern of two environment health enthusiasts who will this week be featured in African Voices Changemakers, CNN’s magazine programme sponsored by telecommunications giant, Globacom.

Bilikiss Adebiyi Abiola, 36, a Nigerian Chief Executive Officer of a recycling company in Lagos will be joined on the programme by two Liberians, Abraham Freeman and Baccus Roberts, who are co-founders of Monrovia-based Environmental Rescue Initiative (ERI).  

Born in Lagos, Abiola started her tertiary education at the University of Lagos, but relocated to the United States of America after the first year to continue her education at the Fisk University  before proceeding to Vanderbilt University where she earned a Master's degree. She got on the payroll of  IBM for five years and was subsequently granted an admission for a  Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the prestigious  Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

She was studying waste management as her specialist subject in MIT when she got inspired to begin a novel approach to recycling of waste by giving  incentives for waste by the city dwellers.  She took the idea back home to Lagos, Nigeria; a city which generates 9,000 metric tons of waste daily and in 2012 co-founded a company called WeCyclers which collects recyclable rubbish from households within the city. The company has given sustenance to at least 80 staff members that use tricycles to gather waste. 

Abiola’s  efforts  have not gone unnoticed as her activities have received copious mentions  in the media not only in Nigeria but in  the United Kingdom, America  and Germany. She has been awarded grants from her alma mater, MIT, to further her research in waste management. She equally won the Cartier Women's Initiative Award for sub-Saharan Africa in 2013.  Most importantly, her continuous efforts at waste management are contributing to making the environment cleaner.    

From Liberia, Freeman and Roberts, two environmental health advocates, will also tell viewers how they are challenging all Liberians and citizens of every nation to take up the gauntlet by ridding the environment of waste and innovatively generating revenue from the same source.  

Through their umbrella company, ERI, the waste-to-wealth enthusiasts remove trash from the streets of Monrovia using plastic components generated from the mountains of waste to fabricate paver bricks for construction.  

Each brick from the primary refuse dump where the ERI factory is located removes more than 666 plastics from the environment and has been adjudged to be stronger than other bricks made from conventional materials. 

The three waste recyclers will be telling their stories on CNN African Voices Changemakers on DSTV on Friday at 8.30 a.m. and on Saturday at 11.30 p.m., 4.30 p.m. and7.30 p.m. Other repeat broadcasts come up on Sunday at 4.00 a.m., 8.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m. with more repeats on Monday and Tuesday at 4.30 a.m. and 65.30 p.m. respectively.