"Why don't you listen, Nyeneabasi? Take the basket every time you go to the market and stop
using my money to buy all these useless bags."
Nyene tried to shake off the voice in her head. She needed to focus on the opening of her new
business and could use some silence to collect her thoughts.
But that voice in her head was the reason she was here today. Why should she shake it off? It
was a reminder of the unsettling truth that her mother, the only one who has been there to watch
her dream, could now see what she has built through the lens of a derelict casket and mounds of
earth.
"But Mami, why would a young girl like me take that old basket to the market? These bags you
call 'useless' look better," she would cry.
Her mother detested nothing more than to see plastic bags in her house. She didn't need them for
anything. When she cooked moi-moi, she wrapped them in plantain leaves. If she was sending
food to someone, the plates will go in her old basket. So each time Nyene went to the market and
returned with the same ridiculous bags, she saw it as nothing but a waste of her hard-earned
money.
As a teenager, going to the market with a basket that had seen better days made no sense to
Nyene. She was sure that basket had been included in her mother's dowry passed down from her
own mother. Because why else would she hold it so dear if it wasn't a family heirloom?
Her scuffles with her mother over the issue only ended when she left Obubra to study
Environmental Management at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.
The first thing she noticed when she reached Awka was that the use of plastic bags was a
common occurrence. Hawkers had them handy in case you bought anything from them. Every
commodity was packaged in them. She imagined how berserk her mother would be if she ever
saw people use plastic bags like this.
In one of her 100 level courses, a lecturer spoke about how quickly the plastic pollution menace
was becoming a global issue. She was surprised to hear that over 5 million tons of plastic
material are dumped in oceans annually, the consequences of which not only affected sea life but
also humans who consumed seafood.
Coming from a region where seafood was a major part of their diet, Nyene was genuinely
concerned about the wellbeing of her people. The thought of sickness or death coming to her
people as a result of contaminated isam used to prepare ekpang or the shrimps and lobsters in
afang soup was horrifying. Though her mother knew nothing about plastic pollution and
contamination of the ecosystem, she accepted her mother wasn't overbearing for insisting on
using a basket for shopping.
When she witnessed a heavy rainfall for the first time since she came to Anambra, she saw the
gutters fill up with plastic bottles and bags of different sizes. She had learnt they couldn't
decompose and wondered often if the world will end up buried in plastic waste one day. It was at
that moment that she decided to change things, not just in Obubra, but everywhere she went.
Following that decision, she began to attend and participate in environmental preservation
enlightenment seminars and workshops. She also made some lifestyle changes that included
buying glass bottled drinks instead of plastic ones, buying a refillable water bottle instead of
using and discarding empty plastic water bottles, and going to the market with a woollen bag that
she could wash and reuse many times over.
As she progressed in her undergraduate studies, she realized that the pollution problem was a hot
topic around the world and went beyond lectures and examinations. Her undergraduate thesis
researched more deeply into the threat posed by plastic pollution and ways through which it
could be solved. While writing the thesis, she got the idea that was now about to change her life.
Upon graduation and completion of the mandatory Youth Service Scheme, many people
expected Nyeneabasi to start jobhunting. But she had other plans.
Her first line of action towards enforcing change was to undergo the Certified Professional
Recycling Course offered by the Pennsylvania State University – Professional Recyclers of
Pennsylvania (PROP). The training opened her eyes to the prospects of recycling and upcycling.
So, she went on to learn how plastic bottles and bags can be upcycled. Her knowledge and
passion helped her to secure the Common Funds for Commodities grant in 2022. Then she made
her return to Obubra to begin her life mission of eradicating plastic pollution.
Once home, she turned their old compound into a collection centre where people came to trade
plastic bottles and bags for a small fee. Although her mother did not understand what she was
doing, she supported her because Nyene was now the one dissuading people from buying plastic
bags unnecessarily. The community members did not understand what she was doing too; who in
their right senses will give people money for plastic they were about to dump in the river?
To make sure her work did not come undone in the future, Nyene started an enlightenment
campaign in schools around her community. During the tour, she explained the irreparable
damage that plastic was doing to the earth and how it was a collective responsibility to prevent
that damage. Soon, she had students volunteering to work at the collection center on weekends.
Every month, an upcycling company that Nyene had partnered with would come to the
community and cart away thousands of plastic bottles and multiple sacks of plastic bags. They
paid Nyene for the material and in turn, she invested the money back into the community. She
actively shared her process and eventually, one of her posts went viral, landing her
ambassadorial deals and recognition from some environmental protection organizations. When
she talked about her plans to provide clean renewable energy for Obubra, several individuals and
NGOs helped with the funding. Sadly, her mother was no longer alive to see her mastermind the
installation of windmills and solar panels throughout the community.
To honor her late mother’s memory, she started a foundation for underprivileged children and
used most of the proceeds from her recycling ventures to offer them scholarships. Her foundation
grew and attracted more donors. Mothers encouraged their daughters to be like Nyeneabasi, the
girl who built an empire from trash.
Now, it was 2025 and Nyene had been invited to the Twinkle the Earth Initiative as a keynote
speaker for their annual summit themed Ending Plastic Pollution. She had her speech ready but
still, she was nervous. Nervous because she hadn’t expected the recognition she was getting,
because her mother wasn’t here to see her shine, nervous because it felt surreal that the girl who
wouldn’t go to the market without buying a plastic bag was now the face of a new revolution as
the girl who built an empire from trash. Nervous, because the emcee was talking, and she was
being called to the stage