Chartered accountant Victor Boyle-Komolafe helped develop GIVO after he was inspired at a workshop, which discussed the waste problem in Nigeria. Fifteen billion units of PET plastic enter Nigeria annually, with less than 10% of them being recycled. The other 90% goes to landfill or into waterways.
GIVO is used by communities, governments or waste management entrepreneurs who want to host a waste collection centre in a particular area. Once registered as a GIVO collection point, waste collectors bring the plastic they have collected to that centre, where they have a profile on the GIVO app. The app tracks how much they have collected, what it’s worth, and when they last dropped off plastic.
Sorters divide the plastic by type and colour before the plastic bottles are weighed and fed into a shredder. Sensors record the weight of the plastic, avoiding human error, and send it to the GIVO app via Bluetooth. The waste collectors are paid according to the weight of plastic they brought in. The franchisee can sell the clean, processed and sorted plastic for seven times the amount they bought it for, and that plastic is then recycled into new products.
The GIVO platform tracks each stage of the recycling process. Buyers can see how much stock is available at each waste collection centre in the country, drivers can log the number of bags they are transporting, and payments can be made and tracked. Individuals and businesses can also use the app to request that their plastic waste be collected.
GIVO has a prototype in Nairobi, Kenya, but plans to run a pilot project in Nigeria at the end of 2019, before rolling the technology out to communities across Nigeria.
