ClimeCo Partners with Enaleia to Establish a Verra Plastic Collection Project in Kenya
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ClimeCo Partners with Enaleia to Establish a Verra Plastic Collection Project in Kenya
*Updated June 21, 2023
BOYERTOWN, Pennsylvania (September 14, 2022) – ClimeCo, a leader in the management and development of environmental commodities, has partnered with Enaleia to remove plastic pollution from the Kenyan coast. Enaleia is a non-profit that engages coastal communities to collect plastic on land and in the ocean to reduce pollution and improve marine biodiversity conservation. This partnership will support Enaleia’s newest project in Kenya, contributing to the generation of plastic credits through Verra. With additional funding from ClimeCo and the sale of the credits, Enaleia estimates they will collect 1,000-3,000 tonnes of plastic annually in Kenya.
“A plastic credit is an environmental commodity that represents the collection or recycling of one tonne of plastic material, which can be used in companies’ ESG, CSR, and sustainability programs,” says Chris Parker, ClimeCo’s Director of Plastic Program. “Our approach is to create a system solution to the plastic waste challenge.”
Enaleia, along with other professional entities that are experts in sustainable development, are collaborating with ClimeCo and the Kwale Recycling Centre (KRC) in Kenya to make sure that the plastic will not only be collected but also integrated into the circular economy.
The Chanuka Plastiki project, which means “awareness of plastic” in Swahili, is operated by the Kwale Recycling Centre in Kwale County, Kenya. The KRC works to implement and improve waste management infrastructure and empower the local communities through educational outreach. As part of their “Buy-Back Program,” the KRC registers and trains informal waste pickers to collect plastic from the environment. The waste is then taken to their Material Recovery Facility (MRF), where the KRC sorts, processes, and transports it to the appropriate end destinations, including use as feedstock for their future recycling operations.
“Through the plastic credit model, we can set up large-scale plastic cleanup projects that can create a real impact,” says Lefteris Arapakis, Enaleia’s Co-Founder and Director. “Taking into consideration that 37,000 tonnes of plastic waste leak into the ocean each year in Kenya, by empowering the communities at this scale, we can not only clean up significant amounts of plastic but also prevent further ocean plastic pollution.”
The KRC also installs and maintains free public waste collection bins and organizes volunteer beach clean-ups and staff-led cleanups of illegal dumpsites. The project hopes to expand to include plastic collection within other counties and along the northern coast of Tanzania, an area that shares a border with Kenya and struggles similarly with plastic waste.
To learn more about plastic credits and this project, contact us.
About ClimeCo
ClimeCo is a respected global advisor, transaction facilitator, trader, and developer of environmental commodity market products and related solutions. We specialize in voluntary carbon, regulated carbon, renewable energy credits, plastics credits, and regional criteria pollutant trading programs. Complimenting these programs is a team of professionals skilled in providing sustainability program management solutions and developing and financing of GHG abatement and mitigation systems.
About Enaleia
Enaleia is a non-profit social enterprise tackling two directly related problems for the marine environment: the reduction of fish stocks and plastic sea pollution. Its mission is to make the marine ecosystem sustainable by tackling overfishing and plastic pollution. Enaleia teaches fishing practices that preserve local fish populations and remove the mounds of plastic that pollute the world’s seas, adapting the fishing industry for a green future.
