Recycling in these corners of the globe(1)

While the principle of recycling is universal, no one region of the globe does it like the others. Here is a brief continent-by-continent overview of recycling practices, records and philosophies.

Recycling In Africa

In 2050, a quarter of the world's population will be African. This soaring demographic growth has a direct consequence: a similarly unbridled increase in the volume of waste produced.

But the lack of government money to introduce effective collection and recycling systems means that the vast majority of countries on the continent are forced to dump these materials in public or illegal landfill sites, which today account for over 4% of global CO2 emissions.

To combat this scourge, and notably the plague of plastic waste, many recycling companies are innovating constantly. In Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali, plastic bags are collected by rag merchants, then turned into furniture, clothing or road construction materials by increasingly inventive small businesses. In Nigeria, a new initiative combining public and private funding will this year streamline the existing networks of rag merchants in the state of Ogun to collect household waste at source and produce electricity or bio-fertiliser. A first in the history of a continent which has the ideas but not yet the funds and the facilities to put them into practice.

The waste recycling systems of Qunfeng include waste solution equipment, garbage sorting machine and so on.