Precious Plastic project in Lagos 🇳🇬 (Patreon)

Last month we've been to Lagos, Nigeria to set up a recycling workspace. I wanted to take a second to give you patrons a little behind-the-scenes with some nice pics from the project. 

This project was particularly interesting for us because for the first time we wouldn't be starting from zero but instead support and upgrade an existing recycler, namely Victor. 

Victor was already collecting and recycling plastic as he could. We decided to upgrade him with a Shredder pro and a Sheetpress so he could recycle more plastic and grow his team. 

As you can imagine it wasn't that easy.. we built the machines in France and shipped them to Nigeria which was already a massive logistic challenge. Once in Lagos, Joseph and Yann got the machines in the dedicated space with great effort from the whole team (no forklifts around :) ). We then realized the space provided was too small so we had to clear a wall (damn it), clean up everything and install the machines. 

Meanwhile, we had struggled for 10 days to get electricity in the building. Nigeria has quite some issues with electricity. Generators are the norm there. The one we ordered arrived late :) and it turns out it wasn't functioning. With only a few days left before leaving, we opted to rent another generator. 

This time it all worked. The machines went on. The Shredder shredded. The Sheetpress sheeted :) We trained the local team and taught them how to transform local plastic waste into sheets. 

To wrap everything up Victor organized an event with local businesses to showcase the recycled sheets and find clients to buy them. 

Oh and there is a nice video coming soon :) 

Let us know what you think and if you had similar experiences working in Africa.
Mattia