Rita Idehai of Ecobater is Our #BellaNaijaWCW this Week!

For our #BellaNaijaWCW feature this week, we celebrate Rita Idehai, a social entrepreneur and geoscientist who’s the founder of Ecobarter which provide sustainable waste management services to municipalities through sensitization, recycling and repurposing.

Ecobarter was launched, in 2018, after Rita couldn’t find where to recycle some old items in Abuja. With a little research, it was clear that sustainable waste management facilities were lacking, thereby causing a waste menace in Abuja as well as across Africa.

Rita also discovered that sustainable waste management had the potential to address the unemployment challenge in Nigeria.

She started Ecobarter with a mission to phase out the “waste” idea, to create a world where there’s zero-waste, where at the initial end of life, every material is 100% reintroduced into another production line or biodegrades.

Ecobarter operate integrated waste management schemes – a cost effective recycling collection system where it places young people on the frontline to connect more communities to its recycling network via the Independent Recycling Hub and Affiliate Vendor Programs.

The platform is also empowering women and youth in local communities to start micro-businesses in waste management under its Waste to Resource Empowerment Program (WREP).

Ecobarter also runs Ecobarter Mall where it sells ecofriendly, sustainable products for everyday use.

Rita, who holds a bachelors degree in Geology/Earth Science from Obafemi Awolowo University, is a fellow of the LEAP Africa Social Innovators Program (2018/2019) and is a 2017 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur. She’s also one of the honourees for SME 100 Africa’s 25 Under 25 awards in 2018.

We celebrate Rita for her contribution to the achievement of a vital part of the sustainable development goals and we’re rooting for her!