SIERRA LEONE PITCHES INNOVATION!
I was pleased to attend a ram-packed Pitch Night Special with Sierra Leone innovators pitching their top environmental solutions to Freetowns waste problems. Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr introduces proceedings with exciting news about upcoming city-wide transformational clusters for Resilience, covering environmental management and urban planning and Human Development recognizing that our human capital is our most important resource and we have to encourage behaviour change so everyone takes their civic duties and environmental responsibilities seriously. Six solutions to recycle waste and reduce CO2 :
- MASADA Waste Transformers who pitched a hybrid "waste to energy" model comprising 2 x mid-size 2MW waste digesters suplemnted with 40 small scale 50 -100KW models - generating a 7 KW net output and processing 300 tonnes of waste over 4 years.
- Franklin Johnson presented a dedicated community based subcription scheme suggesting everyone pays a minimum charge using a cadastral payment system for billing and enforcement.
- Sierra Recyling Industry project melts plastic with river sand (much more eco than beach sand) to make outdoor tiles for the building industry creating jobs and reducing plastic pollution.
- B.E.S.T. Salone proposed waste recycling to create energy - turning waste into bio-diesel creating 2,000 indirect jobs.
- Davephine Tholley pitched a weekly door-to-door collection, recylcing of solid waste using trikes.
- Premier Enviro Solutions great idea is to transform Kingtom dump site to a santitary landfill reducing landfill by 80% by recovering and recycling materials and generating electricty.
With such innovations abounding surely Sierra Leone can make the necessary leap to a clean, green future where we utilize and recycle our waste to create jobs and make and sell new products.
