A meal here costs ten plastic bottles

Surfing in Nicaragua for three months and living in a bungalow right on the beach – that was Khalil Radi’s (28) plan. Instead of surfing the waves, the Zurich native became aware of the poverty and major plastic problem in the region. He realized that he wanted to do something about it.

Together with Jaffet, who works at the shelter, Radi organized the necessary materials for lunch and made people pay with the plastic bottles they collected. He documented the incident with his camera in Virgen de Morena, near Popoyo, and then posted the photos online and was discovered by Anna Garcia Herbst, 27, who knew Radi from elementary school. “I thought the idea was great and I immediately donated money and asked if I could help,” Herbst says.

After the first event, Radi organized two more plastic bottle swap events with Jaffet. Three months later she returned to Zurich. But the idea of ​​paying for food in plastic bottles remained, she.

“At this stage we spent a lot of time learning about the problems in Nicaragua. Many ideas for sustainable processes look good at first glance, but on closer inspection they turn out to be insufficient,” says Herbst, who studies communications at the University of Zurich.

No collection point nearby

“For example, we asked ourselves what we should do with all the plastic bottles we collected,” Herbst continues. There are no recycling points in Nicaragua, so it is not possible to establish a recycling loop.

In Nicaragua, Radi met a determined immigrant from Germany. He talked about the idea of ​​using plastic bottles to build a house. “Our initial reaction was incredible. We thought this was utopian! But it showed us that it’s possible,” says Herbst.

So the two gave a second life to the first bottles they collected as the building material for the house. But after initial enthusiasm, the two quickly realized that it would be difficult to recycle later. Because cement and plastic mix and cannot be separated afterwards.

New things come out of the covers

“It was important for us to build a circular economy. The cycle should not end with a one-time recycling,” says the communications expert. So they set up a small factory that recycles the collected plastic caps.

“PET recycling requires more expensive machinery and we started with small resources. We are very happy to have found a solution for closures (PP and HDPE) and are working on other solutions,” Herbst continues. In January 2022, the plastics processing machine in Nicaragua was ready for use. Plastic caps were used to make the first surf combs, which were used to scrape wax from wood.

“Khalil was there nine months to set up the factory and I was there for three months,” Herbst says. Today, two women and a man have a fair-paying job there. A team of six local employees also organizes Buy Food with Plastic events every month. “We want to show people how to deal with waste,” explains Garcia Herbst. “By buying food, bottles gain in value and are no longer carelessly thrown away.”

3000 francs salary

Everything is currently funded by donations from private individuals, partnerships and foundations. “Transparency is very important to us and we disclose all the figures on our website,” explains Zurichli. You need a budget of around CHF 360,000 per year to pay for everything.

Khalil Radi and Anna Garcia Herbst have been working 100 percent for the social association since 2020. The rest of the team in Switzerland work part-time at 20 to 60 percent.

That they do everything for their non-profit association is also evident in the so-called Charity Gallery: you can rent it for a few days for an event or for a larger occasion. They then clear the tables in the office, organize (if desired) treats and all the decorations. “With this revenue, we reduce rental expenses,” Herbst explains.

By making and selling more plastic products, they want to finance 70 percent of their bottle-to-eat events themselves and rely on donations for only 30 percent.

bag instead of bottle

“Our concept is super scalable and therefore usable anywhere in the world,” the co-founder says. However, in order to do our job properly, we have decided to focus on three countries for now.”

It is important to note that the situation is different in each country. In Ghana, for example, people struggle less with plastic bottles and more with so-called bags. These are the plastic bags you drink from. “Each country has its own culture, different problems, different infrastructures. “It is very important to examine local conditions individually and tailor our work accordingly,” says Herbst.

To date, 62,000 bottles have been collected and about half of the bottles have been recovered from nature. A different kind of sense of accomplishment was this: “In one place, about 200 people would always come to the gathering events, then suddenly only 105 would come. When asked why, they replied: We can’t find plastic on the streets anymore! »