Support Recyclespay for 1000 children in Lagos

This quarter, our story is not just about plastics collected, it’s about resilience, patience, and community rebuilding.

For four years, through your support, the RecyclesPay Educational Project has continued to bridge two urgent crises in Nigeria: education inequity and plastic pollution. Our mission remains unchanged, to ensure children in low-income communities can stay in school by paying their school fees with plastic waste.

But, as with the nation itself, our realities continue to evolve.

Between June and September 2025, schools across Nigeria went on their usual mid-year break, a two-month period that saw reduced in-person activities and, naturally, fewer plastic recoveries. In total, we recovered 216.7 kg of PET plastics, 1.4 kg of sachet waste, 0.5 kg of aluminum cans, and 4.8 kg of cartons across our active schools during the quarter.

Active Schools This Quarter:

• Goriola Primary School: 25 kg PET.
  
  
• Glorious Bequest School: 35 kg PET, 1.4 kg sachets.
  
  
• Kingston High School: 70 kg PET.
  
  
• Righteous View School: 45 kg PET, 0.5 kg cans, 4.8 kg cartons
• Karmel School: 35kg PET

While these numbers appear modest, they reflect the continuity of our work in spite of seasonal limitations, schools were closed for August and September, and our storage facilities reached capacity.

With in-school activities paused, our team took the opportunity to ramp up advocacy across all project schools. We engaged teachers and parents in community sensitisation sessions, distributed menstrual hygiene products (pads) to adolescent girls, and renewed conversations about responsible waste management and education access.

These outreach efforts remind us that the RecyclesPay model is more than a waste-to-fees exchange; it’s a social bridge connecting climate action, education, and dignity.

One key insight this quarter has been the urgent need for expanded storage capacity and/or looking for more partners who will take the recovered plastics off us quicker. Our storage facility now reaches capacity faster than in previous months, a positive sign of adoption, but one that challenges our logistics.

We are working toward establishing community-level micro-collection hubs, which will reduce transport costs and allow for faster turnaround between collection and recycling.

As schools reopen in October, we are resuming full-scale pickups and preparing for a strong final quarter of the year. Our focus will remain on:

• Re-establishing high-frequency collections across all 15 partner schools.
  
  
• Scaling community storage to prevent overflow and improve efficiency.
  
  
• Deepening advocacy on the link between education, gender, and environmental justice.
  
  

Despite economic hardship, high fuel costs, and logistical constraints, we remain steadfast in our belief that no child should be denied education because of poverty, and that even one recovered bottle can represent restored dignity.

Your donations continue to make this possible.
Every naira, every kilogram, every child, a step closer to a more just and sustainable world.

Thank you for holding space for hope, one plastic at a time.

• GlobalGiving_Data_for_SEPTEMBER_2025_African_Clean_Up_Initaitive.docx (DOCX)

ONE PLASTIC, ONE CHILD: KEEPING CHILDREN IN SCHOOL USING PLASTICS.

In case this report is the first time you come across this project, let me say a few things.

• The RecyclesPay Educational Project was kicked off in its infant stages as a project established from the need to ensure equitable access to an education for children living in vulnerable communities.
• Nigeria has a staggeringly high number of over 18 million out-of-school children; the number was below ten million when we started.
• Shocking as this sounds, we have made tremendous progress on the project, going into over 53 communities and reaching close to 3 thousand children during the course of this project.
• The number “18 million” is a reflection of deep systemic failure, which we strive to address through engagement, awareness, doing our bit, and civic pressure.

Our model is simple: go into vulnerable communities, find struggling schools and parents, onboard the schools and parents, the parents gather the plastics, and we ensure collection, after which the money gotten from the exchange of all collected materials are remitted directly into the school purse to ensure children whose parents are unable to pay their fees do so. Avoiding the risk of being kicked out.

COVID changed the world, and in retrospect, the project also changed. We now focus on single large communities with a cluster of schools where we can do our collection in one quick, easy swoop as opposed to going to different communities miles away from each other.

These children, who often come from impoverished homes, mostly living with their single mothers or absent fathers, are forced at an extremely young age to fend for themselves and their families.

The project has since addressed these issues directly and indirectly by helping guardians see merit in letting their children go to school as opposed to fishing or hawking during school hours.

Switching our model of operations has enabled us to cut down on the cost of buying fuel and vehicle maintenance. The project is movement intensive, as there is a need to ensure that all the plastics and recyclables recovered by the schools are collected and then exchanged for payment of school fees. This means we must have a truck running around all the schools where we operate.

Within this reporting period (April–June 2025), we recovered 242.4 kg of recyclable waste from the schools we work with. We have provided books and school bags and embarked on a series of tree-planting exercises in various schools to ensure that children learn in safe and healthy spaces

We believe education is the foundation upon which we build our future. We are committed to building this future and ensuring it is inclusive, equitable, and prosperous for every child, everywhere.

Your donations have so far been the difference; small as it may seem against 18 million, it is making the difference for 1, 2, 3… children.

This is no doubt significant in the individual lives we have reached, opened, and elevated through your help.

Our next phase of implementation will see us focus on localizing recycling efforts in the various communities we serve. This way, we spend less moving around and focus on empowering these communities with the resources at our disposal.

Beyond just directly putting these children in school, we will give the people access to earn so their kids are no longer forced to drop out and help with earning an income.

Thank you for reading through this report, thank you for being here, and let's do more.

One plastic at a time.

• GlobalGiving_Data_for_JUNE_2025_African_Clean_Up_Initaitive.docx (DOCX)