SANITATION OUR LIFE

The solution seeks to mitigate the burning of plastic waste in our communities, and it is also aimed at attaining the Sustainable Development Goal's 12 and 13 respectively.

In Ghana, 1.1 million tons of plastic waste is being produced every year. Only an alarming 5% percent of this is recycled. The vast majority of 95% are gathered in water bodies, some choke our gutters and most of them are burnt in the process releasing harmful gases into the atmosphere, depleting our ozone layer and even causing respiratory diseases. Ghana is not the only country facing this problem, the world as a whole feels the effect of plastic waste pollution. Now, the question is, what can we do to solve this problem. We cannot stop producing these plastics since most of the items we consume come packaged in these plastic containers. To solve this problem, I turn to RECYCLING.

I was born and raised in a community where the burning of plastic waste was a daily ritual. With a population of 400, three out of every 10 children lose their lives because their immune system could not take the harmful gases that they constantly inhale. The lives of asthmatic patients were most threatened. I became more inspired to find a solution to this problem when i lost my best friend who had her asthma attack triggered as a resut of the excessive burning of plastic waste in my community. The rate at which people were losing their lives became increasingly alarming.

My solution to the plastic pollution is gathering plastic waste such as plastic bottles, Vitamin C containers, air refreshner containers, bottle tops and other plastic containers, and using them as the body of a torch light, a power bank and pencil cases.

To  make the torchlight, I also recycled spoilt charger heads by removing the USB slot from them and adding it to my connection. Using a special board, the torchlight can be turned on with a moist surface. I locally manufactured a capacitor by using a special oil as the dielectric material which when heated up produces a scent that attracts mosquitoes hence the torclight is a mosquito trapping torchlight. This torchlight is being used by everyone in my community because of its low cost and the innovation behind it.

The power bank also makes use of a plastic container as its body. There are also power banks that come in form of bottle tops. To make the power bank, I had to detect terminals on the circuit board of a charger head using an auto power supply. To make the pencil case, I took a bottle, cut itinto two pieces and sew it together with a thread and needle. Then painted it beautifully into a finished product. Some of the pencil cases come with bottle top power banks embedded in them.

All these products are used in our everyday lives and are also in high demands. 

The target population are the residence of Cape Coast Metropolis including the high schools in Cape Coast. The population is estimated to be 199,925 individuals. About 45% of the population are well educated, high- and middle-income earners. Out of this, only 20% knows the impact of plastic waste pollution globally. Leaving a vast majority of them clueless about the negative impact of their actions. Most of the population is made up of the youth and the teenagers from the various high schools.

 Currently the schools have been experiencing frequent power outages interrupting their studies during prep hours. As a student myself, i know how unfortunate that is. With the solution, making a torchlight from plastic waste, students are able to access torchlights at an extremely low price. This is one way in which the solution helps them address their needs.

Making pencil cases out of plastic bottles allows children from poor and low-income homes access them at an extremely low cost. The products can also be used by teachers, lectures etc.

The solution encompasses products that we use in our everyday lives which are also in high demands. With this, not only can we contribute to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals 12 and 13 which are ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns and taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impact respectively but also, we can make some products affordable and accessible by low-income earners in our various communities.

We formed our team when we were in the first year of senior high school. Now were in our final year of high school and the team is still strong and passionate about its mission and vision. What makes our team unique is that each and every member has experienced the effect of the problem we are trying to solve at a personal level. Losing a best friend, a mother losing her eye sight due to the smoke and suffering from headaches, fatigue, depression as a result of the long term exposure to styrene which affects the central nervous system are some of the ways the burning of these plastic wastes has affected us and we know that many other people in our neighboring schools, communities, region and countries in world are also affected one way or the other. 

Being in the shoes of the people I want to serve has made me understand them a 100% and most importantly appreciate the gravity of their problem and what they need. I have experienced smoke engulf the whole of our school campus and management had to cancel school for 2 days and I have experienced all the frequent power outages we face during evening preps, and this alone gives me a reason to solve the pollution problem by recycling the plastics to mitigate the burning and also to solve the power outage problem, we made torchlights from the plastic bottles and containers.

I conducted a survey by sharing questioneers with my team, members of the energy club of Ghana National College. Together we conducted interviews with the residence of Cape Coast Metropolis to find out their views and ideas about Plastic Waste Pollution and the impact it has had in their lives and also to find out the level of knowledge they have on recycling.

The people were made to know that their opinions are highly essential at same time vital as it would help us reduce and subsequently eliminate plastic waste pollution while adapting to the act of recycling.

The scale used in answering the questioneers were assessing the intensity of their belief satisfaction ranging from very dissatisfied (1) to satisfied (7)

Data collected from the local communities and schools.

ESTIMATED POPULATION: 199,925

CONFIDENCE LEVEL: 95%

MARGIN OF ERROR: 5%

SAMPLE SIZE: 845

From the survey, we found out that 95% of the population did not know what recycling was. The word recycling was new to them. But they were all confident that plastic waste pollution has caused a lot of destruction in their lives, and they would like to solve it.

OBSERVATIONAL EXPERIMENT

We initially kept some segregation dust bins made of plastic bottles which only collected plastics at vintage points in the communities and high schools. After every two weeks, went round collecting the waste from yhe bins and recycling them into pencil cases, torchlights and power banks.

Post 5 months of sharing these bottle dust bins, 

1. Plastic waste pollution reduced drastically

2. Reduced burning

3. Reduction in the emission of smokes

4.Reduction in the rate at which asthmatic patients were getting their asthma attack triggered.

5. Reduced the number of lung disease recorded in the community hospitals pertaining to inhalation of harmful gases produced when these plastics were burnt.

6. The whole population got educated on recycling.

7. My team and I enhanced on our entrepreneurial skills.

The solution, Sanitation Our Life is innovative in the sense that we reuse materials that cause alot of harm to society when they are burnt,to make products that we use in our everyday lives.

The torchlight is a Mosquito Trapping and Emergency Torchlight which has been developed with a special feature that attracts mosquitoes and also an in-built battery that can light even when there are power outages for 24 hours. Then it is placed in a plastic container which would have been burnt or gathered in the ocean and cause harm to humanity.

The added feature that attracts and traps mosquitoes at the same time save energy for use during power outages will significantly reduce morbidity and mortality rate of malaria battling the world while boosting productivity at night.  We took a 220V USB charger head board and by pass the transformer and connected a 9V battery to the terminals of the board. This was one of the innovative steps taken by the team. These products when sent into the market, can be afforded by people living under 2 dollars per day. This I believe will help us contribute to achieving Sustainable development goals 3( good health and wellbeing) and 7( affordable and clean energy)

By next year, it is my goal to change the lives of 7,000 people by providing them with my solution. I would like to provide these people with my Mosquito Trapping and Emergency torchlights and power banks at an extremely low cost.

By next year it is my goal to initiate RISE, an initiative that takes individuals from low-income homes into consideration by giving them free access to the products if they provide the company with the plastic wastes, they make in their various homes so that they can be recycled. I want people to benefit from their own wastes that is why I initiated Sanitation Our Life to bring on board innovative ideas to solve the problems we face in sanitation.

To reach 7000 people,  i would turn to making advertisement of my products on the television and also create social media accounts where i can display my products.

 Availability is not Accessibility, I want my solution to be accessible and available to everyone even people with no internet connection, to do this, my team and will go door to door in as many communities as possible to bring them our solution.

By next year, it is my goal to see my solution make a significant contribution to attaining Sustainable Development Goals 3,7,12 and 13 respectively.

The core technology used in the solution is Energy Saving and Pollution Controlling Technology. All too often, waste ends up in landfills, burnt or incinerated. Sanitation Our Life addresses this by converting these plastic waste into products we use in our everyday lives that also in high demand. This helps us move towards a circular economy, allowing citizens to benefit from plastics in an environmentally friendly way.

Sanitation Our Life has visited 10 Communities such as
Brafoyaw, Ekon, Ntsin, Asamankese just to mention a few.
 The Team has also visited 10 Senior High Schools and 25
Basics schools. Some of the Schools are Aggrey Memorial
AME Zion School, Mfantsipim School, St. Augustine’s College,
Ghana National Basic School, EkonBasic School, Childcare
School, and University Junior High School among others.
 In all Communities and Schools visited we donate flashlight, power banks pencil cases to be used during power outage.
 Sanitation out life customer base is 3500.
 All these have helped to contribute to the attainment of SDGs
3, 6 and 17.

Lack of financial muscle to purchase means of transport to quickly expand to more schools is our weakness. Many schools have expressed interest in our products but due to low financial muscle to expand, we have been unable to enlarge our market base. 

Currently, we have not partnered with any organizations. Our source of income to patronize our solution comes from parents and teachers and members of the community who donate to keep our solution alive.

In order to effectively and quickly build Sanitation Our Life customer base, Sanitation Our Life intends to aggressively promote its products by offering free repairs of the products to its new customers. In addition, the Sanitation Our Life will implement a variety of marketing methods to complement and build on the free repairs offer. Since our competitors do not offer free repairs of their products to their customers, Sanitation Our Life will achieve a competitive advantage.

Sanitation Our Life intends to advertise its free repairs offers by way of radio ads (secured through cross-promotion deals or barter arrangements), door hangers and ads in coupon packages. Existing competitors do not currently invest in advertising, leaving the market wide open for Sanitation Our Life.

Attendance and exhibits at local homes and supermarkets shows are also planned to keep the Sanitation Our Life recycling products such as torchlights, power banks and pencil cases name constantly in front of consumers.

Sanitation Our Life will quickly establish itself in the Cape Coast market as a top-quality provider of torchlights, power banks and pencil cases all quality products of recycling.

Sanitation Our Life will do this by emphasizing superior customer service in all aspects. One major component of ensuring that customers are delighted with sanitation our life products and services is the appointment of talented and outgoing route delivery person who is responsible for monitoring customer satisfaction and for pursuing new business.

Sanitation Our Life will ope

Sanitation Our Life uses the 4Ps strategy to outsmart its competitors.

1.PRICING: Selling the torchlights and power banks at GHC10.00 has made returns has made response to be faster since students can now afford them.

2.PRODUCT: Fascinates students to buy through the customization of the name and the innovation behind it.

3.PLACE: Pushing for the implementation of the business in various Senior High Schools through the STUDENT REPRESENTATIVE COUNCIL since they are the mouthpiece of students and have influential voice when it comes to issues concerning students.

4.PROMOTION: Ensuring fast delivery, high-profile allegiance, and good control to present the solution.