   YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD AND YOU: A program sponsored by sustainable design consult dedicated to enlighten listeners to know about the environment, the right of a citizen living in an environment, environmental hazards and things needed to be done to prevent hazards from happening.
On a new episode of the program, The host Comfort Omolafe with the sponsor of the program Tpl Ogunseyi Ayodele Joseph will be putting questions to the General manager of Secure Recycling, Mr. Oluwatoyin Adesina Alege on how to convert waste to wealth(Using PET bottles to pay school fees)
What is the waste to us? How do we pay children school fees with pet bottles?
Mr. Oluwatoyin Alege said waste to wealth and pet bottles to wealth is a way of helping the society i.e how our environment can be free from dirt and also it is a way of empowering people to have access to money to pay for their wards in schools. The aim of Secure Recycling is to lift people out of poverty. Just as the President of Nigeria said his government wants to lift fifty million people out of poverty, Secure Recycling is also trying to partner with the government to bring people out of poverty.
He continued by saying that the economic situation of the country is so bad and there is hardship over the way and it is extremely difficult for parents to pay their children school fees. This is why they come with a system of turning waste to money in the aspect of education (School fees payment). He said they have partnered with the schools, the government, Event centers and so on. He said once parents have bottles with them, they should call on Secure recycling and the company will give values to the bottles picked, Then the parent can use to settle the school fees of their children without stress.
TPL. Ogunseyi Ayodele said the current situation is bad and presently there are lots of problem, security, environmental, economic, and even political problems. Secure Recycling came up with the idea of turning waste to money and he loved the idea which is why he is partnering with them.
He said everybody can benefit from the program be it rich or poor, he said they are also calling on the schools to partner with them. There is a way that one can help people patronizing you, there is a way of helping people lower in status in the society. He said the exercise is in two folds and one is Secure recycling is cleaning the environment and the other one is getting money from it and if parents do not want to pay school fees with the money they are getting from picked pet bottles, they can as well use the money collected to take care of other expenses, The bottom line is they are ensuring that the environment is clean. He continued by saying they can have somewhere in the schools chosen where the pet bottles can be valued and change for money that will be used for school fees payment. He even said during holiday, children can pick pet bottles within their neighborhood and gather them when it is more, then take it to their schools that have partnership with Secure recycling and the school will scale it to know its worth and then credit the account of the person that brought the bottles, then Secure recycling will come for the picked bottles and smile will be on everybody’s face.
  Is it compulsory that people go through school or otherwise, can’t they come to your yard to place the pet bottles?
Mr. Oluwatoyin Alege answered by saying it isn’t compulsory for people to go through school, They can decide to keep it in their homes if its safe to do, they can come to Secure recycling yard and we will definitely take the pet bottles from you. The innovative is that we make use of schools mostly public schools that have children who don’t pay school fees and are putting on tattered uniforms, spoilt shoes, if we can just give them orientation on how to earn money i.e picking pet bottles at their leisure time and keep them safe somewhere or better still keep them in their school where is it more secure and after doing that Secure recycling will come for it, scale it, value it and it will be recorded down for the children for the payment of their schools fees.
   How does the project works and how do you buy the pet bottles? Do you have specification for all these pet bottles?
TPl. Ogunseyi Ayodele said every pet bottles is accepted, be it vegetable oil bottles, soft drinks bottles, either big or small is accepted and payment will be made after weighing it to know it’s worth. Every bottles gathered will still go through little process and turned into dead flakes, And that flakes is the one that we need to pack and sent to our bigger company. He said PET bottles can be used for making random t- shirt, elastic jeans, fiber inside the pillow, white fiber can be found inside the warmer used in countries that has cold weather.
Mr. Toyin Alege added that PET bottles is a win win situation for secure recycling and the people, We collect it and the people get value for it, the fact that the environment is clean and free from bottles means the government is getting value for it. That is why secure recycling and sustainable consult is partnering together to make our environment more friendly so that we will not continue destroying our ozone layer by burning all these PET bottles. He said the general public should not burn the bottles, People should gather the bottles and get money for it instead of burning them.
 The PET bottles are light in weight, How many months can someone get a kilogram?
TPL. Ogunseyi Ayodele said although the bottles are light in weight but when you start picking one by one, before you know it you would have picked more than enough if you know what you are doing, He said as at now they have seen some individual that are giving us up to a ton per day as light as the bottles is. He continued by saying the population of people coming to urban areas keep increasing and they will want to live like urban area people. People consume more water during dry season and this increases the volume of PET bottles. He said they need to be picking the bottles to have a safe environment and when we add 2 + 2 + 2 of that pet bottles, before you know it you can have ton and when you have a ton, it’s money. A ton of pet bottles can pay more than three minimum wages of three people
Mr. Toyin Alege said he deals with the boys working for him on a daily basis, The so-called abokis that we like to insult, we see them as nobody. Every day we see someone that is not up to 10 years picking bottles and go home with as much as 10,000 naira in a single day, He or She will be motivated by the money to bring more bottles. He said once an individual come with pet bottles, the person will get paid immediately. But this waste to wealth to pay school fees means we are not giving you the money instantly, for instance, over the period you’ve collected like 100 tons and the school fees is one naira, we will value it and pay on your behalf.
   How do you pick bottles gathered by people? Do you pick up from your suppliers home or office?
Mr. Toyin Alege said people can contact them via their number and they will surely come to pick the bottles up if  the volume is up to 500kg or 1 tons in their houses but agreement will be reached before picking up the bottles, but if they are coming with just 10kg, they can bring it to the yard in Owode.
  What else do you need to tell us about this waste to wealth?
TPL. Ogunseyi Ayodele answered by saying he is a town planner, a professional who have passion for environment, he said he don’t have to wait for the government to do everything for us, he said he loved the idea when he read about the secure recycling and when he did his research, he found out about a school in the slum not collecting money as school fees, the only means of getting the fees paid is by collecting useful waste. He said this is a means of solving problem of environment and also solving the economy problem of the people that can’t afford to pay their children school fees. He said average school fees for high density area is in between 50 to 60,000 naira and it is per child. He noted that nothing should stop a family that has two or three children from picking up to a ton of bottles in less than a month and if they can pick like 2 tons which means the family has already solved the problem of school fees and if the parents and children noticed that the pet bottles is bringing in more money, they can pick more to even pay for their rent or other expenses. He also said even the graduates with no specific job can do the recycling business (PET bottles). If we are helping the environment and we are making money from it, he said he has never seen the kind of a pure money that is more than that because the environment will pray for you, the mother nature as well will pray for you and at the end of the day, you are still making your money cleaning your environment. It is not only schools that can participate, even NGA, the ministry, departments and agencies can as well participate provided that they have compound that they can keep the pet bottles. He said the fact that people are paying to dump their waste, they can as well make money from some of the wastes by separating them (bottles from cartons, metals from food wastes), Put them aside, let the waste collector pick the wastes that are not useful, the money that you are getting from the recyclable material can be used as personal use.
   Do people need to include pet bottle cover before it can be accepted?
Mr. Toyin Alege said people can bring the pet bottles In any form but it must be close to neat and their should be no water, sand or particles inside the bottle and the amount of money to be paid for dirty bottles will be reduced compared to the one that is neat. He said other than that, pet bottles with no cover on it will be accepted.