How Yaya Kone encourages Ivorians to sort their plastic waste and recycle with Coliba

Meet Yaya Kone, the co-founder of Coliba, a startup specialized in collecting and recycling plastic waste in Côte d’Ivoire.

Yaya had worked as a teacher in France, when, during a visit at home in Abidjan, he noticed how much waste was going unrecycled and what the negative implications were.

So he and his co-founder Genesis decided to do something about it.

Together with their team, they set up a mobile platform which connects households and companies with formal collectors that pick up sorted plastic waste.

The collected plastics are then turned into flakes which are sold off to manufacturers that can use them to make new products.

In the interview Yaya speaks about:

• How he turned himself from teacher into social entrepreneur
• What challenges he and his team encountered setting up Coliba
• How they set up partnerships with the likes of MTN and Coca-Cola
• And what his advice for young Ivorians is

There is a lot of good stuff in this interview and we hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did. 🎧

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