Keeling Curve

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Route 360 Solutions Initiative (R360SI) is a social enterprise that creates income-generating opportunity for marginalized youth and women, while meeting housing needs and reducing climate change and plastic pollution in Sierra Leone. Using a community-based approach that involves providing incentives to households, waste collectors, and community waste centers, R360SI collects plastic waste from these groups and transforms it into eco-friendly construction materials through extrusion. Compared to their traditional counterparts, these construction products are water-proof, damp-resistant, more affordable, and two times stronger.

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One of our main objectives at R360SI is to create jobs for marginalized youth (such as slum-dwellers and out-of-school youths), including women. For several years, we have witnessed the constant exclusion of youth in the climate decision-making process. For example, in Sierra Leone, where our project is based, young people have no voice or seat where the government and other policymakers make climate-related decisions. This is why R360SI is a youth-founded and youth-led initiative.

At R360SI, we are empowering young people to become climate leaders in their communities. We educate and train them to address the climate crisis in their communities. Trained as waste collectors, recyclers, and brick-and-paver engineers, youth collect plastic waste from community waste centers and plastic waste vendors, and recycle it into eco-bricks and paving tiles for house construction and pavement. 

So far, about ten youths have secured jobs through R360SI, with the majority serving as waste collectors, recyclers, and brick-and-paver engineers. These youths have not only gained valuable skills but have also been able to generate income to support themselves and their families.

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