Africa Innovates Magazine - Flipbook - Page 53
WASTE & RECYCLING
Photo credit: SimplifiedWaste
USING RFID
TECHNOLOGY
TO CLEAN UP CITIES
IN CONGO
Photo credit: Emmanuel Mukadi (LinkedIn)
SimplifiedWaste provides an app for
municipal collection routes that uses RFID
technology – QR codes – to deploy and
track private waste collectors. The founder,
Emmanuel Mukadi, based in Lumumbashi,
Congo, was motivated by the unfortunate
reality that available options for households
are inadequate, and collection and dumping
irregular.
The collector receives a route through the
platform, proceeds and scans the QR code,
triggering a payment to a household. Once
validated, the collector takes the bin and
empties the waste at the nearest transfer
station.
SimplifedWaste participated in the CTCN
Youth Climate Innovation Labs Demo Day
2021, organized by the CTCN in partnership
with SAFEEM and funded by the European
Union.
The CTCN Youth Climate Innovation Labs is a
three-day event that brings together selected
youth participants as well as climate technology
experts to explore innovative design thinking
tools and create solutions for climate action. At
the end, the selected participants are provided
continued support to implement and scale
their solutions through a 6-8 week Climate
Innovation Academy Programme delivered by
the CTCN partner Seedstars.
The startup offers the government the option
to collect and levy a tax for bin collection, while
transferring the public authorities’ portion to
local governments. The idea is to promote a
cleaner city and provide passive revenue to
households.
“I hate how my city
looks. Honestly
it looks like
Armageddon. By
2025, Africa will
have generated
244 million tons
of waste per year.
Less than 10% of
that waste gets
collected.”
Emmanuel Mukadi,
SimplifiedWaste co-founder
SHOWCASING AFRICAN CLIMATE CHAMPIONS
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