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For nearly a decade, UNICEF has been working with women in the Ivory Coast to turn their plastic waste into bricks that can be used to build new schools.
Now, the charity says, 383 classrooms have been built using more than 3,000 tons of plastic in the West African country, providing 19,150 children with new school infrastructure, CNN reports.
"It's a bold idea and implemented by brave pioneers willing to take a chance and to adapt along the way," says UNICEF USA's country director for the Plastic Bricks Project, noting that the project needed at least 1,000 women to collect plastic trash to keep up with demand.
But fewer than 200 were recruited.
As a solution, about 70% of the plastic waste is purchased from the private sectorcreating an incentive for local entrepreneurs and supporting the market for recycled plastic wastewith half going to the women and half to the collective.
Meanwhile, UNICEF has hosted trainings for engineers, construction workers, and designers with an emphasis on employing women, and the Colombian social enterprise that manufactures the plastic bricks has partnered with UNICEF to create building kits for others who have been trained to work with the material.
So far, 167 new classrooms have been built, and many lessons have been learned along the way.
Among them: plastic bricks
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