Buy Food with Plastic is an international organization from Zurich and is tackling two main problems hands-on: plastic pollution and poverty.

They initiate events with local teams in Ghana, Nicaragua, and India, where people can pay for food with plastic bottles. As a significant side effect, they are simultaneously creating jobs, raising people’s awareness about plastic, and spreading hope in places where it is sometimes hard to find.

With the collected plastic bottles, Buy Food with Plastic create new products or recycle them accordingly. They always adapt the recycling solutions to local conditions. Where a functioning recycling infrastructure exists, it is used. Where there is no infrastructure, such as in Nicaragua, the team set up an upcycling factory in which the plastic waste is processed into new products. This will create additional jobs and generate profits through the sale of the products – thus closing the economic cycle. In the long term, the regions should operate this cycle independently and without financial assistance.