ReFuse: Refugees For Reuse

Solid waste management is a tangled issue in all humanitarian emergencies and underprivileged clusters. ReFuse seeks to alleviate the waste problem by creating reverse vending units, where recyclables are weighted and bought from all community members to be sold to recycling factories. How? In standard movable shipping containers.

Investing in traditional sorting schemes is unconceivable, it's neither cheap nor engaging. Cash-for-trash will make the difference, boosting community engagement while maximizing the collection of valuable resources to be repurposed/recycled. Sharing the value of everyone's waste will make everyone understand the power of a circular economy. ReFuse App will track amounts sold, while creating a direct channel to keep community members trained and interested.

ReFuse is tailored to the dynamic context of Lebanon’s marginalized communities, where refugees often outnumber host members, though reverse-vending units are designed to be spread in all areas where services are lacking: Syria is just one mile away.

In displacement emergencies trash is one of the most evident problems, still largely untackled (from settlements in Italy to Greek islands) because of the sudden changing population, the generally isolated locations and because not everyone loves to face it. But ReFuse does.

In Lebanon, the country with the highest proportion of refugees globally - out of 6, 2 are either Syrian or Palestinian - , garbage piles up easily due to improper infrastructures, corruption and war reminiscences and because of clear hostile governmental decisions. The ongoing Civil Outbreak started in October 2019 due to the economic hardship and the Covid19 crisis highlight the extreme situation also faced by a worn host community. 

Centralized waste management systems to tackle the issue are expensive, land-consuming, extremely incapable to intercept small recyclables and often require important transportation machineries. De-centralized, movable, scalable schemes are more efficient, they are close to people and can therefore prove how to re-think our waste-related practices.

Making everyone understand that recyclables are a resource is undoubtedly a hard job, but the only way to prove is finally sharing its value with those who are willing to sort.

ReFuse is a cash-for-trash system that introduces the concept of recyclables reverse-vending to promote sorting at source, raw-materials collection and littering prevention, while training community members on sustainable practices.

It's designed to reach marginalized or displaced communities, where investing in a collection scheme with trucks and bins is extremely complicated or simply impossible due to inexistent roads and infrastructures or unsustainable expenditures.

How? Shrinking a facility in a movable, scalable, standard 40ft shipping container! At ReFuse units, to be located in refugee clusters, informal camps or unserved neighborhoods, operators weigh and purchase valued materials sorted by locals living nearby or by shops, to be baled inside the facility and sold to existing recycling factories. Erasing collection costs, ReFuse will be able to reward those who will contribute, sharing the value of secondary raw-materials.

Participants will have the chance to download the ReFuse App to monitor their waste-wallet, while receiving tips on how to improve in waste prevention, sorting, recycling and so on.

Each container unit is therefore both for collection and storage  - thanks to a professional baler - so valuable fractions are pressed and piled, to be then directly transported to recycling factories minimizing transportation.

Today I'm here, tomorrow I don't know. My Syrian neighbor told me this sentence while having dinner in a shelter on the Lebanese mountains. I've lived alone in a multicultural informal settlement for more than three months, to deeply understand what it means to live as a refugee, rejected by the world.

This sentence is the key to understand that any solution dedicated to displaced or marginalized communities has to be designed understanding their priorities, in a precarious environment in which a healthy ecosystem is lost in their pile of needs. Would you sort your waste as a refugee in a tent?

ReFuse is for them, to prove that they can find resources from the unexpected, that together they can improve the situation of their shelters through their waste, as much as through their commitment.

ReFuse containers are meant to be in all underserved communities, with operators involving members and being on the ground to directly support and promote engagement, explaining that not only economic value is generated, instead that they deserve a safe environment and that they can actively contribute to preserve it improving their own lives.

Relieving waste pickers is a priority. In Lebanon, refugees and marginalized locals are often met on the streets collecting recyclables to be sold on the black market.

ReFuse was born with the aim of restoring their dignity, properly hiring them as environmental operators trained on materials, processes and procedures, who don't spend their lives scavenging in other's litter but have a dignified opportunity to work, learn and live.

Being on-field-entrepreneurs, operators will be part of the social for-profit to be established, having the chance to earn a decent wage out of what we still wrongly call waste.

ReFuse wants to prove that traditional sorting schemes, even in high end communities, are the wrong strategy to promote a circular use of resources.

We call it waste, we simply want to get rid of it, we can sometimes get relieved from sorting bins to simply say that someone else will solve the problem, but we still don't value this powerful source of opportunities as we should. Often, what we throw in a sorting bin is not recycled, making our efforts worthless or even harming collection systems.

Trading recyclables at community level will teach to participants the exact value of secondary-raw-materials, it will show them what we can really define as recyclable -since someone wants to buy it to re-use it- and what should be erased from our shopping lists, since it represents a burden that sums up to the expensive need of dealing with unpleasant mixed streams.

Several solutions in underserved communities are focused on purchasing specific fractions, see The Plastic Bank in Haiti or FabricAid in Lebanon, while not making the community deeply understand the whole picture of valuable raw materials, ranging from PET plastic to cooked oils and electronic waste.

The ReFuse App is the most powerful improvement: collecting data, being able to re-locate collection units depending on demand, training participants and supporting workers, all at once. Finally, creating the first waste-crowdfunding platform, we will give the chance to marginalized communities to sort and clean-up with a purpose: sustaining causes in which they truly believe.

Technology grounds our operations in 4 ways.

1st, fully equipped container units have to be re-shaped to function as a sorting facility, with the need of making them independent to be transported where needed, when needed. They are designed with photovoltaic roof systems and rainwater harvesting schemes; most importantly, they will host two balers. The first one is a traditional hydraulic press, the second one has been purposely designed by ReFuse team to work even when electricity is not available, combining a manual press with a car-jack.

2nd, a professional scale is connected to a tablet, to allow the operator to identify the client, select the material he has brought, weigh it and register all data on ReFuse database, assigning a percentage of the conferred valued to the waste-wallet of the client.

3rd, ReFuse App is our interface with clients and operators. On one side, clients' profile will keep track of their contributions and give access to useful information on sorting and recycling through the ReFuse Waste-Dictionary. On the other side, every bale pressed by operators will be uploaded to monitor the capacity inside the facility and request transportation to recycling factories before reaching its limit, allowing transportation efficiency and minimization. 

4th, our Waste Crowdfunding Platform is our final ace up the sleeve. A simple software guiding small organizations, refugees, citizens, students and so on in designing community projects and campaigns to fund their activities through recyclables, boosting collection and engagement.

1st, container units are solid, resistant, standard and easily upgradable. Waste balers are commonly used globally in sorting and recycling factories, at both informal or formal activities. Our manual waste press combines traditional manual machines for loose materials like hay, and hijacking it with a car-jack will ensure the extra power needed to press PET bottles or aluminium cans.

2nd, professional and very sensitive scale are commonly used in industrial and food production applications, often being already equipped with usb cable to be attached to management softwares and databases.

3rd, waste management apps are still not common in underserved communities, though cash-for-trash based solutions are proven to be deeply involving participants, and the app will make sure that transparency is guaranteed and that proper data collection will make the system more efficient and engaging.

4th, platforms for crowdfunding are spreading everywhere, asking for simple donations or selling products/equities, though using waste to fund projects has only been done without a system that allows to monitor both the achievements of the campaign and the proper usage of funds, suggesting that our platform will make the difference.

Long-term outcomes: A circular economy district is established, promoting a healthy environment and a sustainable usage of resources

Short-term outcomes: 

1. Sorting at source is recognized as a successful sustainable practice and is practiced by 75% of the population living in a radius of 500meters from ReFuse facilities.

2. Community members are trained on sustainable resources management and autonomously engage their networks, also promoting clean-up events.

3. Local authorities/entities/factories understand the importance of promoting alternative integrated waste management schemes and the relevance of generating/using secondary raw-materials.

Outputs

1.1 community members subscribe at ReFuse units and confer their recyclables, being rewarded

1.2 community members use the mobile application to monitor their waste-wallet, understanding their waste habits and being encouraged keep improving

2.1 community members consult the waste-dictionary on the mobile application and receive direct support from operators in improving their knowledge and skills on sorting

2.2 through the waste-crowdfunding platform, participants autonomously promote projects financed through waste, engaging the community to ensure funds collection

3.1 local factories understand the relevance of receiving these high quality secondary raw-materials and are willing to establish financial partnerships

3.2 local authorities embrace the concept of integrated alternative waste management schemes and support the establishment of ReFuse units

Activities:

1.1.1 ReFuse units are established and start purchasing recyclables from community members

1.2.1 a mobile application is created to mange clients' accounts and to guarantee transparency in waste transactions

2.1.1 a waste-dictionary is created to support untrained people on recycling and sorting, also providing information on local waste streams.

2.2.1 a waste-crowdfunding platform is created to allow uploading projects, with a financial target met through recyclable's value.

2.2.2 clean-up events are organized to show the positivity of a clean, healthy environment and to prove that collective efforts generate positive changes

3.1.1 Meetings and field visits are organized with recycling-factories to prove the quality of local sorted-at-source raw-materials

3.2.1 A workshop is organized with local authorities/entities to explain ReFuse and gain trust on alternative sorting schemes

3.2.2 Meetings and field visits are planned to prove local authorities the positive effects of ReFuse scheme

ReFuse is still an idea. 
Every unit is designed to serve a population of around 4000 beneficiaries in the direct surroundings.

In one year, we expect to pilot our units and progressively reach 1000 subscribers (families -in average 4 people - and shops), and we adopted a logistic growth model to understand the potential subscription curve, with a higher interest rate in the first phases, slowly declining till the saturation of participants within a certain radius.

In 2 years our network will spread. With 10 units planned, our pool will extend up to a population of 40000 vulnerable community members, through family subscription or commercial activities registration.

Lebanon has more than 1.5 million refugees, ReFuse units are simply waiting to be spread. We envision 50 units spread throughout the country in different municipalities, directly serving a population of 200.000 people conferring recyclables to a container unit.

We can't wait to start. Our first goal is having our idea piloted, tested and made sustainable, proving its feasibility and giving us the chance to adjust all details that will make it perfectly functional.

We'll then start expanding, our secondary goal is to become a rapidly growing social enterprise that intervenes where needed, promoting sustainable resources management and rapidly establishing container units in different areas. Our reverse-vending points will therefore be replicated to benefit a wider population.

We don't want to stop with cash-for-trash, our team is already developing several parallel containers, to increase the number of fractions collected, to design pre-treatment portable facilities and to promote entrepreneurial activities with waste streams collected.

In 5 years, a full set of ReFuse container will be developed, with the main original unit serving as a collection point and other modules with specific functions: photovoltaic electro-composting, textile washing and upcycling, plastics chipping and flaking. Our team just can't wait to start new tests.

The main barrier is the unstable situation in Lebanon, a country that is currently in a developing revolution started in October 2019 and that is facing a strong de-dollarization of its economy, in a huge financial crisis. Its geographical location and complex history require precautios interventions and a deep evaluation of the complex social context.

The legal framework is another relevant issue. The lack in implementing decrees makes operations more complicated. A new Law on Integrated Solid Waste Management has been published in 2019, though implementing decrees are still needed to finally regulate the waste sector in the country. 

Our team has already put in place several mechanisms to overcome the difficult situation of a revolution, establishing partnerships with International Organizations that can support us in the development of functional solutions to be deployed in complex humanitarian situations. Our team also has a deep experience on the ground and on refugee displacement rapid response, ensuring the flexibility and capacity to minimize risks. The financial crisis is of course a limit, though the lack of dollars does not allow imports within the country, making secondary raw materials extremely needed locally to keep productive units operational. It's a limit, but it's also a great opportunity.

In terms of legal framework, our solution can be directly implemented with no restrictions, even though an implementing decree might categorize it as a regular waste treatment scheme (not a simple collection/sorting scheme), therefore requiring an environmental impact assessment that would be conducted by the environmental and civil engineering experts in our team.

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Our management team is 6 handed. CEO, CTO and CMO are the main figures, with mixed experiences that will ensure merging skills and backgrounds in a strong leading group.

ReFuse will hire previous informal waste pickers as full-time environmental operators, and will create employment opportunities depending on the number of reverse-vending containers deployed. In the first year, two staff members will be hired. On our 5 year plan, the enterprise will involve 50 environmental operators and our management team will expand to 8 full time positions.

Longtime friends since primary school and fieldwork partners, our team merges technical, social, and environmental skill sets with long term trust. While we have only been working together on ReFuse for the past 6 months, our passion and working experience on social and environmental sustainability binds us all together.

Cosima, our Chief Marketing Officer is specialized on circular economy and climate change adaptation. She had direct international experiences with waste pickers communities and will be guiding our community involvement initiatives while promoting our clean-up services.

Ali, our Chief Technical Expert, is an experienced Civil Engineer working in humanitarian response for Internazional Non-Governative Organizations, as a multi-sectorial response coordinator and project engineer. He combines technical skills and outstanding field experience in widely different emergency situations.

Guglielmo, our Chief Executive Officer, is an Environmental Engineer specialized in Waste Management and International cooperation. Throughout his career, he focused on combining social, environmental and economic sustainability to promote efficient, impactful and resilient projects.

We don't have official partnership agreements yet, though our idea has been deeply discussed with the international NGOs "Norwegian Refugee Council" and "Action Against Hunger" in several meetings in Lebanon, to support in defining the idea and to identify potential future partnerships.

ReFuse will generate revenues through recyclables trading, purchasing secondary raw-materials from locals around reverse-vending units and selling them to recycling factories. Another source will be NGOs and entities funding ReFuse clean-up events, organized and managed by our team reaching and involving local communities. Our waste-crowdfunding platform will be the cherry on the cake.

Value will be created in several different ways, generating needed secondary raw materials and reducing the dependence on outsourced materials, while minimizing waste related risks (fire, pollution, etc.) and directly rewarding community members.

Our key resources are available: garbage (everywhere!), waste-pickers to be involved in formal employment initiatives and clear data on waste streams and value that will help us designing all operations.

Our Synthetic Business Model Canvas is ready!

ReFuse aims to start with a small grant to start its operations and open its first reverse vending unit. The initial amount will allow our team members to make the first structure financially viable, using most resources to develop the soft infrastructures needed for the implementation (mainly the mobile application and the waste-crowdfunding platform).

When our units will be deployed, we'll allow external investments to provide capital for establishing new container units, to be repaid through our services: sponsored clean-ups and recyclables reverse vending.

Investors will be therefore able to observe the cost-revenue model of the first infrastructure launched, which breakeven point has been estimated after a 24 months period in a normal case scenario, with 50% of the target population actively participating. The model we built, combining waste production data, participation rates in similar existing projects, population density measurements and a logistic growth, show that if 75% of the target population is involved, our breakeven is anticipated of more than 6 months.

Being able to rapidly return capital to our investors and providing integrative services that will integrate our resources, ReFuse will rapidly become fully viable, independent and profitable.

We are a very well structured team, though we need help. A practical support in legal registration of enterprises, and particularly of social-enterprises would be really useful. 

A practical support in adjusting our technological solutions would highly improve our efficiency, making sure that the pilot phase we are aiming to launch will be more structured and solid.

Finally, being able to revise our business model with experts would help us in ensuring that our predictions and calculations are correct and that our idea is effectively stable and profitable, ready to be proposed to investors and other funding opportunities.

We truly believe that waste management requires a full set of entities cooperating together to solve the same issue and transform it into an opportunity. We look forward towards the establishment of partnerships with public authorities at municipal and regional level, as much as with private recycling factories and value-chain actors. Finally, seen our deep focus on underprivileged and refugee communities, we truly believe in cooperating with not-for-profit organizations, helping us to approach those who are most in need while responsibly creating value.

We would love to work with startups who work on services provision and who make social-impact central in all their operations and decisions.

Technical partnerships with environmental engineering research departments are also seen as a priority, to have extra eyes and minds focused on designing and developing our ideas. Our aim, is to establish a deep partnership with UNESCO Chairs for Human and Sustainable Development, university departments who commit to deploy their technical expertise to International and local Cooperation.

We called it "Refugees for Reuse" for a reason. ReFuse creates empowerment opportunities for refugees through waste. It seeks to include them as service providers as much as environmental actors, while foreseeing potential entrepreneurial engagements for refugee community members.

ReFuse was designed while living in a refugee shelter, sitting on the ground in the only two hours of light available per day, striving to understand ho services should be re-designed from scratch to be spread in informal, isolated, rejected communities. It grew meeting refugee scavengers, trying to connect with them on their ground and aiming to perceive their difficulties while facing the hardships they have to stand daily.

It became an entrepreneurial idea while observing million-dollars projects abandoned by several institutions who tried to replicate traditional solutions in a context that needs flexibility as much as a human touch.

I can proudly state that refugees are central in ReFuse entrepreneurial idea, and being able to use this fund to pilot this initiative, directly improving their lives, would be the best way to repay the hospitality received while trying to become part of their fragile temporary community.

ReFuse empower some of the most undignified workers from disadvantaged community: waste pickers. It has been designed to transform their lives, scaling up from "scavengers" to trained and equipped environmental operators, who's mission is not only to work on waste management in formal structures, but also to be environmental ambassadors within their communities.

Inclusive Entrepreneurship should start from them, and ReFuse is ready to get them on board.

The GM Prize would allow us to run a pilot phase, testing the main unit where environmental operators will be daily be sustainability promoters and actors. This phase would let us open the door towards further investments meant to scatter ReFuse in all vulnerable underserved communities.