The Alliance to End Plastic Waste Just Wants to Make More of It

In the middle of the Sahara desert on the western border of Algeria, refugee camps hosting tens of thousands of people rely completely on humanitarian aid: Water, food, and other basic supplies come in on trucks. Trash, on the other hand, doesn’t really leave; until recently, all the waste from the camps was dumped nearby in the desert into an ever-growing pile of plastic. But at a new recycling center at one of the camps, refugees are now turning that plastic trash into furniture and other products that they can use.  Precious Plastic, an organization with a DIY recycling system developed by a Dutch designer who wanted to make recycling more accessible, helped set up the center after the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, put out a call for solutions to help with the waste challenge at the camps.

On March 31, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network Youth (SDSN Youth) unveils its first-ever Global Youth Innovation and Global SDG Impact Awards, which aim to recognize, showcase, support and mobilize outstanding solutions that are advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Why launch the Awards?  It has been almost seven years since the United Nations unanimously adopted the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. However, we are “tremendously off-track” to achieve the SDGs:  0 countries remain on track to meet all of the goals, 43 years behind schedule to achieve the goals, 2.5 trillion annual financing gap that needs to be closed.  During this time, SDSN Youth has been mobilizing young people worldwide and has witnessed the creativity, innovation and passion of young people who are eager to create change for a sustainable future. Many of them are already developing and even running solutions that address one or more of the SDGs. What they lack is support to scale their efforts to bring about more impactful change.