Plastic pollution has reached frightening proportions, endangering the environment and life on Earth. Taking a somewhat creative approach, Egyptian social startups are trying to raise awareness of the problem and reduce plastic waste, writes Mostafa Adel.

Global plastics production reached 348 million tonnes (excluding certain fibres) in 2017, rising from 335 million tonnes in 2016, according to data from Plastics Europe. The most critical issue is that the larger part of plastic waste is not properly managed: around 55% of it was landfilled or discarded in the surrounding environment in 2015. These numbers are extremely concerning because plastic products take anything from 450 to 1,000 years to decompose, and the effects on the environment, especially on marine and human life, are catastrophic.

While many initiatives around the world are taking action to combat this problem, some Egyptian-grown ones are doing it a bit more creatively.

BEKIA

“We’re the first website in the MENA that trades waste,” says Alaa Afifi, founder and CEO of Bekia. “People can get rid of any kind of waste at their disposal –– plastic, paper, and cooking oil –– and exchange it for over 65 products we have on our website,” he adds.

Products for trading include rice, tea, pasta, cooking oil, subway tickets and school supplies.

Bekia launched in Cairo in 2017. Initially, the business model did not prove much of a success.

“We used to rent a car and go to certain locations every 40 days to collect waste from people,” Afifi, 26, explains. “We then created a website and started encouraging people to use it.” Thus, people could wait at home for someone to drop by and collect the waste. “Instead of 40 days, we now could visit people within seven days.”

To use Bekia’s services, people need to log onto the website and specify what kind of waste they want to discard. They get points automatically calculated based on the waste, and these points can be used in one of three ways: donate them to people in need, save them for later, or exchange them for products. As for the collected waste, it is given to specialised recycling companies for processing.

“We want to have 50,000 customers over the next two years that regularly use Bekia to get rid of their waste,” Afifi adds. 

However, trying to spread environmental awareness was not easy. “We had a lot of trouble with initial investment at first, but we got through by getting an initial investment that was far from enough back then. The second problem we faced was spreading this culture among people –– the first couple of months, we got no orders!” Afifi says.

The team soldiered on and slowly built a client base, currently serving 7,000 customers. Regarding what lies ahead for Bekia, he shares, “We’re expanding from 22 to 30 areas in Cairo this year, and we’re launching an application very soon and a new website too, with better features.”

GO CLEAN

Go Clean, another Egyptian recycling startup dedicated to raising awareness about the environment, works under the patronage of the Ministry of Environment. “We started in 2017 by recycling waste from factories, and then by February 2019 we started expanding,” says founder and CEO Mohammed Hamdy, 30.

The Cairo-based company collects recyclables from virtually all places, including households, schools, universities, restaurants, cafes, companies, and embassies. The customers separate the items into categories and then fill out a registration form. Alternatively, they can make contact through WhatsApp or Facebook messenger. A driver is then dispatched to collect the waste, carrying a scale to weigh it.

“The client can get paid in cash for the weight of their recyclables, or they can make a donation to a special needs school in Cairo,” Hamdy explains. There is also the option of trading the waste for dishwashing soap, with more household products to be added in the future.

Trying to cover a country with 100 million people was never going to be easy, and Go Clean did face problems with logistics. It overcame them by hiring more drivers and getting more trucks. There was another challenge along the way. “We had to figure out a way to train the drivers, from giving them training on how to use GPS to how to deal with clients,” Hamdy says.

“We want to spread awareness about the environment everywhere. We go to schools, universities, companies, and even factories to give sessions about the importance of recycling and how dangerous plastic is. We’re currently covering 20 locations across Cairo, and all of Alexandria, and we want to cover all of Egypt in the future,” he adds.

With a new app on the way, things are definitely looking up for the social startup, and people are becoming invested in the initiative. “We started out with seven orders per day, and now we get over 100!” Hamdy concludes.