In Ivory Coast, Nestlé’s dedication to eliminating plastic pollution is paying off. Its Ivorian division recently opened a project at the Wassakara market in Yopougon, one of the 15 communes in the Abidjan area of Ivory Coast, to install 200 m2 of paved pathways.
The initiative was carried out by Manage & Paste, a local company that specialises in garbage recycling. The solid waste accumulated during the “Au marché je trie mon plastique (At the market, I sort my plastic)” operation was turned into paving stones by the company. These materials are less expensive than concrete paving stones. Between 2020 and 2021, the programme helped Yopougon collect and recycle 60 tonnes of plastic waste, primarily in the Wassakara, Sicogi, and Selmer markets, while also creating 15 jobs for collectors and supervisors.
Nestlé is minimising contamination of land and water by converting plastic waste into paving stones, which is non-biodegradable and made up of more than 90% fossil fuels, according to the worldwide organisation Greenpeace. The Swiss company’s goal for 2025 is to eliminate the accumulation of recyclable or reusable packaging in the environment in Côte d’Ivoire.
Nestlé funded the “Collecteurs indépendants” initiative in Abobo and Cocody, as well as the “Plastock” project in the Abidjan municipality of Port-Bout, in addition to the “Au marché je trie mon plastique” project, which was implemented in the councils of Treichville and Yopougon. Nestlé collected a total of 587 tonnes of plastic in Abidjan in 2020. According to AfricWaste, a PET plastic bottle collection effort created by the French corporation Veolia, the district alone produces 288 tonnes of plastic garbage every day.
