NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

University of Northampton undergraduate Ben Thomson, currently in his third year of a Business Entrepreneurship degree, along with partners George Richards and Chris Richardson founded social enterprise Green Cycle. The organisation is working to develop recycling solutions for waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) in the city of Lagos.

The enterprise is working in collaboration with the Orile Iganmu Progressive Association (OIPA) to change attitudes towards waste in Nigeria through education programmes and to carry out waste collection for households and businesses in Lagos. OIPA, which has trained over 1,500 young people in computing and literacy, is running public campaigns and educational workshops in Lagos to inform residents of the dangers of hazardous waste.

Green Cycle will aim to establish a processing facility locally that will seek to extract the valuable resources collected from any WEEE in Lagos. Mr Thomson has also received support from the university’s Professor of waste Margaret Bates, a WEEE expert who was instrumental in setting up a WEEE recycling facility in Nigeria with Lincolnshire-based firm Reclaimed Appliances in 2009 (see letsrecycle.com story).