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Waste pickers in Nairobi boost recycling skills by playing a board game

Waste pickers in the Kenyan capital are being trained how to be more productive and help the environment - by playing a board game. They learn about the circular economy, sustainable practices and how to advocate for their own needs.

READ MORE : http://www.africanews.com/2026/05/01/waste-pickers-in-nairobi-boost-recycling-skills-by-playing-a-board-game

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Transcript
00:00Nairobi's giant Dandora dump.
00:04Waste pickers on the site make a living by salvaging anything of value from the rubbish.
00:10Their work also keeps huge volumes of materials out of landfills.
00:17Now they're being trained how to be more productive by playing a board game.
00:27I've learned that when we collect waste we can use it in many ways that can benefit us and give
00:33us more profit.
00:36For example, I collect plastic. I've learned that I can use the plastic bottles in many ways.
00:46I can use them as a water container to plant pre-seedlings or flowers.
00:55All those alternative uses I've learned through this game.
01:03The program is the brainchild of the community-based Mazingera Yetu environmental organization.
01:11So people are not understanding, for example, the principle of cycling economy.
01:15They reduce, recycle, restore.
01:17So it was a very, it was a difficult concept and it's something that I've been working on.
01:22So it's when we thought of why can't we use the Sheng language as a way of just telling them,
01:31these are things that you know, but in a very fun way.
01:35So as much as we are playing, we are remembering, oh, we do these things, we have been doing these
01:40things, but we never, we never took, we were not serious about it.
01:43Helen Diener works with Greenpeace Africa.
01:47She says game-based learning is a powerful tool for informal workers who learn by doing.
01:54Both games have been proven to actually being a fun and interactive way of learning, you know,
02:02this difficult concept in the sense that, you know, it could be different things and learning how to handle waste,
02:10for instance,
02:10how to, you know, reuse different kinds of plastic packaging, not plastic, but sustainable packaging.
02:19It could also teach children or even young adults how to, you know, for instance, refill, reuse and recycle.
02:29Every ton of waste sorted and reused by pickers brings the Kenyan capital closer to its environmental goals.
02:37We'll see you next time.
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