Yola, Nigeria — Like millions of other young students across Africa’s most populous nation, 17-year-old Isa Ibrahim heads to school each morning. But when classes end, he shelves his books for a sack and sets out to collect discarded plastic bottles from the streets.
“Bottles thrown away after use are eventually swept into drainage systems that should ideally be clean,” Isa told Explorer English.
For him, plastic bottles are more than just waste; they are a responsibility and commodity.
Plastic pollution is one of the world’s fastest-growing environmental challenges. According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the world generates around 400 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, with 19–23 million tonnes leaking into lakes, rivers and oceans annually. Despite the scale of the problem, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that only 9% of plastic waste is recycled globally, leaving the rest to be landfilled, burned or mismanaged.
Every afternoon, after school closes for the day, Isa changes his school uniform, puts on a pair of gloves and sets out to collect plastic bottles he sees littering the environment, blocking drainage and dirtying the streets. These are problems caused by what people throw away every day.
His journey into plastic collection began at home. His father Ibrahim Ismai’il, taught him how to sort plastic waste, separate recyclable materials and prepare them for sale.
But because education comes first, he makes sure his son goes to school before thinking about work.
“I have always taught my son to do what is right,” Ibrahim Isma’il told Explorer English.
For more than two hours, Explorer English followed Isa through the streets of Yola, a city with poor waste management in northeast Nigeria as he stopped at a refuse dump sites, bending repeatedly to pick up discarded plastic bottles.
They are then weighed, sold and transported to recycling facilities, where they are processed into new products.
The bottles weighed 43 kilograms. At ₦130 per kilogram (about US$0.094 as of July 11), Isa earned for the day’s collection.
“What Isa does helps keep the environment, drainage channels and refuse dump sites clean because plastic does not decompose,” said a plastic dealer Muhammad Ismai’il who purchased the bottles before sending them for recycling. “We are trying to turn waste into useful products such as jerseys, wrappers and other reusable items.”
As the sun began to set over the skies of Yola, Isa quietly made his way home after selling the bottles he had spent the afternoon collecting.
The next morning, he would return to the classroom. By afternoon, he would once again be on the streets, picking up the discarded plastic bottles many people walk past without a second thought.
In Adamawa State, Isa Ibrahim is quietly showing that meaningful change does not always come from governments or grand initiatives. Sometimes, it begins with an action from a student who is passionate about clean environment.