Co-processing is a safe, eco-friendly waste treatment, in line with the Basel Convention Technical Guidelines. It has been recognized as a recovery operation under EU legislation. This solution enables to avoid of open-air plastic burn and provides a greener solution for the cement industry.

It is a technology that converts manufacturing waste (like orphan plastic) into alternative fuels and raw materials (AFRM). Simply put, it’s when the trash is burned for its energy fuel rather than sources like petroleum and coal. The benefits of co-processing plastic are multiple: it reduces CO2 emissions by burning plastic rather than coal, it minimizes the use of non-renewable resources, it reduces plastic waste, and it’s a zero-waste practice since even the ashes are used in cement manufacturing. Cement factories offer the perfect solution to plastic management. Burning plastic for fuel rather than coal is a cleaner option, and it properly eliminates plastic that otherwise would have ended up in landfills, as ocean-bound plastic. The leftover ashes are mixed into the cement, ensuring that the entire process is zero-waste. 

Utlimately, the world benefits because plastic waste is being eliminated and fewer non-renewable resources are being used.

We work in poor waste-management areas with informal waste-pickers, who can benefit from better earnings. TONTOTON has created a new market for the orphan plastics incentivizing waste pickers for its collection of which formerly, they would otherwise ignore.

Under the program waste pickers are provided with:

• equipment for safer working conditions: masks, shoes, gloves

• access to the minimum health insurance

• sustainable earnings to fight poverty

• training for sorting, safety and more

Single-use plastic is too light, and its value too low to be collected and recycled. It has no market value, making it "Orphan Plastic" that is more likely to become marine litter. Ocean-bound describes plastic’s last stage before it ends up in the ocean. It appears in rivers, shorelines, and even land. While most of the ocean-bound plastic (OBP) originates within 50km of the shore, OBP may come from a location more inland, but because of mismanagement, it’s now headed toward our ocean. The best way to guarantee that plastics stay out of the ocean is to stop the issue at its source. Unfortunately, single-use plastics are too convenient, which means that we’re still years away from eliminating non-recyclable plastics entirely. 

While we wait for a viable substitute for non-recyclable plastics, we focus our efforts upon projects that seek to stop mismanaged OBP before it hits our ocean.

The project provided alternative sources of propagation, (home gardens for 500 households in 5 villages) increasing diversity around forest community while reducing pressure on the forest for these species. 175 Varieties of 35 crop species were saved in the community seed bank. Seed exchange and multiplication activities influenced the increase in cultivation of new varieties. Seed bank produced and sold over 10 different varieties of local tomatoes, yams and garden eggs. Proceeds was used to set up a Community Biodiversity Management Fund.

We have developed a manual which can help smallholder women farmers replicate the solutions in the South West of Nigeria. At the national level, collaborating with policy makers to include indigenous food plants as key components of in the School feeding programs as well as the Anchor borrowers programme for micro-credits. Our Seed bank Open day programmes provide avenues for exchange and display of seed diversity as well as a model for local seed bank scale up to a national project for the conservation of a larger number of wild crop relatives in Nigeria. We are currently advocating at the National legislature to provide legislative laws on the inclusion of Indigenous food plants to the Nigerian Food policy programme. These initiatives when pulled together will contribute significantly to indigenous Plant Species Conservation.

Through alliances with different organizations and in coordination with the authorities, the development of the management plan was initiated.

In the first phase, work has been done to create the guiding document that will make it possible to implement the management plan by establishing roles and methods.

The organizations involved in the management plan are:

• Instituto Municipal de Ecología de Hermosillo
• Desert Walkers A.C.
• Profauna A.C.
• Ecological Collaboration.
• Ecogrande A.C.
• Naturally Fun

This strategy consisted of applying for a call for proposals called: "Fund to Support Sonora Projects for the Environment", which made it possible to implement a soil and vegetation cover restoration program for the Parque Central or Parque Johnson Natural Protected Area.

Through the on-site identification of areas of greatest impact, this fund was managed for the development and placement of hydrological infrastructure such as gabions and cisterns.

We had the support of a group of engineers: HEMEK Engineering, as well as the participation of the Sonora Silvestre Collective for training and advice on the installation of the gabions and the support of groups of citizen volunteers for both the preparation and subsequent maintenance activities of the gabions.

For the achievement of this strategy, there was ample support and donations in time and material from various organizations:

CEDES - Economic Resources

Hemek Ingeniería S.A. de C.V. - Engineering and execution of the project.

TE Conectividad - Donation of a 5,000-liter cistern.

Ayuntamiento de Hermosillo - Donation of 42m3 of stone for gabion filling.

Alejandro Robles Topography - Topography works.

The strategy based on alliances allows connecting visions that lead to the development of actions oriented to a common objective, in this case, the restoration and conservation of the Central Park Natural Area and its zones of influence.

The activities that have made it possible to build this community network with actors from institutions and other CSOs have included on-site events related to their own projects, as well as training with expert advisors on restoration issues and practices outside the impact zone, but which make it possible to concretize and strengthen the technical learning necessary to continue with the project.

One of the most significant actions has been to collaborate with different social actors in the preparation of the Management Plan for the Natural Protected Area, which is a necessary and useful resource for conservation objectives and a multi-stakeholder action, as well as collaborations with transboundary associations such as the Arizona Desert Museum and Borderlands Restoration Network in an effort to improve the consequences of the impacts of exotic plants and implement restoration actions.

The purpose of this strategy was to involve the public in joint responsibility for the care and protection of the protected natural area. In the first stage, these actions consisted of removing all the solid waste that was in the area; citizen science workshops were also carried out to promote the care of the area's fauna and flora and knowledge of local species, as well as to raise awareness of the area. The neighbors of the adjacent neighborhood and the general public were also involved in the construction of a linear trail in the area of influence of the PNA, as well as in all the activities related to the maintenance of the area: removal of the invasive buffel grass in priority areas, continued cleaning, maintenance of the trails, and reforestation with native plants.

The objective of this strategy was to strengthen participatory management activities through environmental education. Tours of the natural area were conducted in which the general public was invited, as well as children's walks, theater presentations, family walks, night walks, and citizen science workshops.

These educational activities were led by actors from different areas: biologists, theater actors, members of the association, and naturalist tutors. All this to strengthen the links between specialists in the area of conservation but also to diversify the way in which specialized knowledge is presented to the general public.

The information and themes were aimed at informing about habitat conditions in the area, informing about the ANP, informing about invasive species as well as native species and strategies of minimum impact in natural areas.