Women in Trash4Cash programme sorting plastic waste on the Kilifi coast
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Programme 07Livelihoods
07

Trash4Cash

Women's groups collect and sort plastic waste, selling to certified recyclers. Turning ocean pollution into household income and clean coastlines. 120 women, 2+ tonnes of plastic monthly.

120
Women Participants
2+ tonnes
Plastic Collected Monthly
4
Communities
8M tonnes
Plastic Entering Oceans Annually
UN SDGs
SDG
5
Gender Equality
SDG
8
Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG
14
Life Below Water
SDG
13
Climate Action

Eight million tonnes of plastic enter the world's oceans every year. On the Kilifi coast, the women of the Trash4Cash programme are fighting back - and getting paid for it.

Trash4Cash brings together women's groups from coastal communities to collect, sort, and sell plastic waste to certified recyclers. What would otherwise end up in the ocean becomes household income. More than 80 women now participate across four communities, collecting over two tonnes of plastic waste every month.

The programme is part of the LIFT Network - Oceans Alive's broader women's economic empowerment and conservation leadership platform. By placing income generation and environmental protection in the same hands, Trash4Cash makes conservation something women do for their own futures, not something done to their environment.

120
Women Employed

Programme

Trash4Cash

Livelihoods · Programme 07

Trash4Cash women sorting plastic waste into categories for recycling

Sorting, weighing and preparing plastic for sale to certified recyclers

Women in Trash4Cash programme with collected plastic on Kilifi beach

Clean beaches. Economic independence. Conservation leadership.

We are not just cleaning the beach. We are building our future.

- Trash4Cash participant, Kilifi

Support This Programme

Your donation directly funds conservation work on Kenya's coast.