A tour around the city of Lagos, the economic capital of Nigeria, will convince you that the city is filled with a lot of wastes that cause damage to people and the environment. These wastes are seen as useless to almost every individual, but in the eyes of an entrepreneur like Bilikiss Adebiyi, lying on the streets of Lagos is not waste but fortune. This article is about a woman of virtue, who sees opportunities in where no one else does; this article is about the young and beautiful Bilikiss Adebiyi.
Bilikiss Adebiyi, was born in Lagos State where she currently resides. She attended Supreme Education Foundation Secondary School, before proceeding to study at the University of Lagos, Akoka. After a year in the University of Lagos, she decided to continue her education outside Nigeria. She graduated from Fisk University, in the United States of America before obtaining a master’s degree from Vanderbilt University, also in the United States of America. After her master’s degree, she worked as a programmer for tech company IBM for about five years. In pursuit of further knowledge, she quit her job and got a master’s degree in Business Management, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T).
In her second year as a student at M.I.T, Bilikiss Adebiyi took a class named Development Ventures. This class was focused on helping out the poorest people in developing countries, and she was studying waste as her specialist subject. It was while attending these classes she developed the idea of helping poor people living in ‘waste-infested’ areas, and making profit out of it. Her initial idea was to collect waste from these areas, and offer raffle tickets to households where these wastes were taken from. When she presented this idea to M.I.T, she was lauded for her brilliance and she was promised to be backed in her venture.
It was after her graduation from M.I.T in 2012, that Bilikiss Adebiyi relocated to Nigeria and co-founded Wecyclers. This company started by using an environment-friendly bicycle, to go to different houses in Lagos to collect waste. The waste collected from each house is then weighed and the heavier the waste gathered in a house, the more points the house earns. The house is then notified by SMS about how many points have been won; these points can be converted to prizes like food, household items or airtime. How does Wecyclers make profit? The waste collected from these houses is sorted into different types, and then sold to recyclers in and out of Nigeria.
Lagos state has a population of more than 18 million people, and it is estimated that about 10,000 tonnes of waste is generated daily and only 40% of this waste is collected. With these figures, waste in the state seemed uncontrollable. Wecyclers not only provides convenient recycling of a fraction of these wastes, but also promotes env ironme ntal sustainability and public health. With the activities of Wecyclers, all parties involved, Wecyclers, the Lagos state government and households in Lagos state, are the winners.
Wecyclers is fully backed by the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), and it is partners with Coca-Cola and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), who produce the bulk of waste disposed in low-income areas of Lagos state. Other partners of Wecyclers include First City Monumental Bank (FCMB), DHL, Unilever, Oracle, the Nigerian Bottling Company, MIT Sloan School of Management.
By 2015, Wecyclers had already collected more than 500 tonnes of waste from households, and it’s employees had increased to about 80 staff. In 2018, Adebiyi stepped down as the CEO of Wecyclers, after she was appointed by the Lagos state government as the Managing Director of the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency (LASPARK). LASPARK, is tasked with the development and maintenance of parks in Lagos state. The agency is also charged with the beautification of open spaces around the state and promotion of the health and wellbeing of the people. Under her management, LASPARK has launched a tree planting campaign to reduce the effects of climate change.
She also serves as the Director General of the Lagos State Records and Archives Bureau (LASRAB); an agency that is responsible for records, regulation and control, archives accessioning and preservation, information knowledge and management, and heritage preservation in Lagos State. A trusted servant of the state, she also sits on the board of the Lagos State the Employment Trust Fund.
Adebiyi’s work with Wecyclers has gained a lot of national and global recognition. She has featured in news and publications like The Economist, CNN, Al Jazeera, NDaniTV, The Punch, Huffington Post, BBC, Marie Claire Magazine, D+C, New African Woman, Die Zeit and The Independent. Awards she has won include Cartier Women’s Initiative Award for sub-Saharan Africa in 2013, the King Baudouin International Development Prize in 2018/19, and Yunus Challenge Prize at the MIT IDEAS Global Challenge Competition.
