Using plas­tic to combat hunger

Where does your nonpro­fit enga­ge­ment stem from?

As a child, my parents took me on trips to count­ries such as Cambo­dia. I was expo­sed to extreme poverty at the age of 14 – and I saw what happened when you spoke to people living in those condi­ti­ons and listened to what was on their minds. When commu­ni­ca­tion happens, so does action. It’s the key to posi­tive change.

That’s why you wanted to work at an NPO?

Having a posi­tive impact through commu­ni­ca­tion is an idea that’s been with me my whole life. I joined an ambi­tious marke­ting start-up straight from univer­sity. Our work revol­ved around adver­ti­sing great discounts for various compa­nies. This expe­ri­ence helped me to acquire some really valuable know­ledge and I would certainly do it again. But at some point, I asked myself whether I was really commu­ni­ca­ting what I wanted to share with people. During this stage of my life, I was looking for an idea as to how I could use my passion for writing and storytel­ling to get people to make a change. And then I saw an Insta­gram post by Khalil, the co-foun­der of Buy Food with Plas­tic, about his first commu­nity event in Nica­ra­gua – and I knew that was exactly the type of story I could tell.

His event marked the start of Buy Food with Plastic?

Exactly. It all began with Khalil making his dream a reality: he spent three months living in a modest beach­front bunga­low in Nica­ra­gua and going surfing every day. There, he was confron­ted with the enorm­ous hunger problems in the coun­try and was expo­sed to the impact of plas­tic waste. This all ended up in the natu­ral envi­ron­ment or was burned, with some mothers even using plas­tic as fuel for cooking.

And that spaw­ned the idea for the event?

Yes. Khalil wanted to orga­nise an event with hot food and music where people were to pay with plas­tic instead of money. He told one of the staff at the bunga­lows about his idea and they loved it: they orga­nised the first event in colla­bo­ra­tion with other local workers. More than 100 people turned up. Scores of child­ren were stan­ding outside the event hours before it was meant to begin, clut­ching plas­tic bott­les – and despe­rate for a hot meal.

Did sustaina­bi­lity or social aspects take centre stage?

The idea was driven by social concern and sparked by his expo­sure to extreme poverty. Pairing this with the plas­tic problem was a stroke of genius.

You lear­ned about the event via social media?

I saw a video of the first event on Khalil’s Insta­gram page. 

Did you know Khalil?

We went to school toge­ther, but we hadn’t spoken for years.

The video moti­va­ted you to get involved?

I was abso­lut­ely blown away by it: a simple idea that solves two problems. And I wasn’t alone. Other people also respon­ded to the video. We put toge­ther a small team, stream­li­ned commu­ni­ca­tion and assis­ted with orga­ni­s­ing three addi­tio­nal events. After Khalil retur­ned to Switz­er­land, people weren’t sure whether we’d be able to successfully keep the project going from here. We all had jobs to do or degrees to complete.

What moti­va­ted you to conti­nue your involvement?

After two weeks, Jaffet, our team member in Nica­ra­gua, got in touch: the child­ren had been knocking on his door and asking when the next event would be. That was a real turning point – we had a local team on the ground who belie­ved in the idea and were able to put it into prac­tice. And we helped from here. 

So you have two commu­ni­ties, one in Switz­er­land and one in Nicaragua?

Exactly. We also star­ted working in India and Ghana at a rela­tively early stage.

Why these two countries?

This is the posi­tive impact of social media. We did not seek these loca­ti­ons out: they found us. Our local mana­ger in India, Shakti Yadav, saw the concept on social media and thought it would be perfect for people living in the slums of Bhan­dup in Mumbai. He got in touch with us.

So people came to you?

The project proba­bly wouldn’t exist today without the intrin­sic moti­va­tion of the child­ren and the local popu­la­tion in Nica­ra­gua. The same goes for India and Ghana. The project wouldn’t be able to operate without the people on the ground who serve as our part­ners and make Buy Food with Plas­tic a reality. 

Is your commu­nity made up of youn­ger people?

Well, it depends. Shakti Yadav in India is a little over 25. Frank Sarria, our coun­try mana­ger in Nica­ra­gua, is over 30. Most of our helpers are between 20 and 35 years old, but there are always excep­ti­ons. The project inspi­res so many people, young and old alike.

And you commu­ni­cate with them via social media?

We do, but we also use our website. Plus, we hold a twice monthly in-person event here at the Charity Gallery. Our office is also a gallery: our workspaces are in the middle, while images of our projects hang on the walls. 

Why did you set up a nonpro­fit association?

Khalil initi­ally laun­ched the initia­tive in a private capa­city. Our first few dona­ti­ons were paid into his perso­nal account – but that wasn’t a long-term solu­tion. That’s why, in Octo­ber 2018, we set up an asso­cia­tion, opened our own account and applied for a tax exemp­tion. This meant we could also issue dona­tion receipts for the money we recei­ved from the beginning.

Did you start working with the orga­ni­sa­tion as a volunteer?

In the early days, we put toge­ther teams in Nica­ra­gua, India and Ghana, while those of us in Switz­er­land all worked on a volun­t­ary basis during our lunch breaks or in the evenings. Khalil and I deci­ded to quit our jobs two and a half years ago, and we star­ted to hire other team members. But even today Buy Food with Plas­tic wouldn’t exist without our army of volunteers.

How important are dona­ti­ons for your organisation?

At present, dona­ti­ons fund 95 per cent of our work. 

Do you also receive back­ing from larger-scale donors?

We receive large dona­ti­ons from foun­da­ti­ons, compa­nies and private indi­vi­du­als. The chall­enge is that most major dona­ti­ons are one-off rather than over seve­ral years. That makes plan­ning more tricky, and it’s why we’re looking for more part­ner­ships with a time­line of three years.

Is the project always going to rely on support or does it have a busi­ness model?

Our aim is to estab­lish a circu­lar economy on the ground: we want our local acti­vi­ties to be self-support­ing within three to five years. Events, coll­ec­tion points and other concepts supply us with plas­tic that we turn into new products in local facto­ries. Then, we sell these products. 

One of these products is a surf wax comb. 

That’s right. It was the very first product we made in Nica­ra­gua. It’s a logi­cal choice, as locals and tourists alike use those combs there. That’s our concept: local mate­rial, proces­sed and sold locally. We’ve now expan­ded our product range. We manu­fac­ture a Jenga game in Nica­ra­gua and plant pots in India. 

Were you ever worried that the idea wouldn’t take off?

I never doub­ted that it would work: I always had faith in the project. I’m parti­cu­larly impres­sed by the fact that we always have a direct impact. We don’t need 10-year plans to deter­mine whether some­thing works – we get confir­ma­tion in Nica­ra­gua, India and Ghana, where we can see directly what happens with our donations.

But you have faced chal­lenges and setbacks?

We’ve dealt with nume­rous chal­lenges. Estab­li­shing the legal struc­tures in these count­ries was chal­len­ging. Another exam­ple is our project to build a house from PET bott­les and cement. The results seemed promi­sing at first and we were convin­ced this could be the right path for us to take. But we later reali­sed that it was hard to sepa­rate plas­tic and cement, which would have meant simply passing the plas­tic problem to the next gene­ra­tion. That’s why we modi­fied our concept to create a circu­lar economy.

What do you think is the biggest chall­enge for your generation?

I’ve noti­ced that some people have become discon­nec­ted from nature. If this connec­tion had been main­tai­ned, less plas­tic would end up in the envi­ron­ment. That said, I am seeing some posi­tive chan­ges. I don’t feel that we are power­less: I think we can take action and have an impact.

And that’s what you do with the association… 

The idea didn’t just appeal to the five of us who foun­ded the orga­ni­sa­tion: we also attrac­ted other people who worked for us or wanted to become members. 

Your member­ships are named after animals. What’s the reason behind that?

Have you heard the story of the humming­bird? It’s shaped what we do for a long time now.

No, tell me.

A massive jungle fire drove out all the animals. They fled the wood and sought shel­ter next to a small pond. Only the little humming­bird used his deli­cate beak to take a drop of water from the pond, before flying back to the fire and thro­wing the water on to it. The big animals laug­hed at him and told him he’d never be able to extin­gu­ish the fire. The humming­bird said he knew that, but that he was just doing what he could – and if ever­yone did the same, they’d be able to put the fire out.

So, the humming­bird is your role model?

We’re well aware that we can’t save the world on our own. Nevert­hel­ess, we’ve brought the project to life and are doing our little bit. Now, we need support from lions, elephants and giraf­fes, too. In my eyes, this inspi­ring tale is testa­ment to the fact that every single one of us has our part to play.