About us

We are a social enterprise based in the UK and part of the Ellen McArthur Foundation community.

We are an Associate Member of Break Free from Plastic, the global movement to end plastic pollution.

We are a member of the Prevent Waste Alliance, which connects stakeholders along value chains.

Our Team

Cameron Smith

Business Development

Cameron has designed and run Software, “bricks and mortar” operations, and a mixture of the two, for the last twenty years. He is based in Sub-Saharan Africa where the idea for Unwaste.io was born.

Rajalakshmi Gopalakrishnan

Product Evangelist

Rajalakshmi is a finalist in a postgraduate Environmental Impact Assessment and Management course. She has experience applying digital technologies to materials recycling challenges in several Indian states.

Arcel Zandamela

Logistics Supervisor

Arcel is a professional mechanic with many years of experience driving, maintaining and supervising freight vehicles.

Laura Smith

Partnerships and Content

Laura has worked across the social sector in the UK for two decades, focusing on business development, user-centred project management, content and service design for social enterprise, charities and public agencies.

Martin Pllu

Technology

Martin is a full-stack software architect with over two decades experience. He is an early adopter of cloud technology and has used this to build Unwaste.io's crowdsourced data collection platform, Wastebase, with a highly scalable, cloud-native architecture.

Danilo Sousa

Product Engineer

Danilo is an experienced full-stack software development engineer with experience in solving business problems using technology in Telecommunications, Foods & Beverages and Financial Services sectors across Southern & Eastern Africa.

Danilson Macita

QA and User Support

Danilson is an Electronic Engineering graduate who has worked on the development and support of several innovative digital platforms in Mozambique.

Our philosophy

We believe that emerging digital technologies can support better, cheaper and more efficient plastic waste management. Our approach is based on these fundamental principles:

We are all responsible for plastic waste

Solutions must be based on Extended Producer Responsibility. Producers should charge and Consumers should absorb the full cost of single-use plastic they make, buy or use. This includes the costs of managing waste in a way that minimizes harm to the environment.

Solutions must be economically viable

Solutions will only be adopted within a market economy where there is clear value for all actors in the production, collection and recycling chain of plastic products. This must include those in marginal and informal sectors. In particular, solutions should offer:

price transparency, transaction security and demand stability to waste pickers and recyclers
improved quality and stability of supply to purchasers of recycled and repurposed plastic
visibility about the post-consumer waste journey to beverage brands, bottlers and distributors

We must reduce the volume of land-based plastic that enters our oceans

Solutions must work within a waste treatment hierarchy that deals with waste as close to the point of production as possible, in line with the proximity principle, and is appropriate for each specific country. Once plastic enters the oceans, it is extremely costly to recover.

Solutions must be based on accurate, specific and structured data

This should be available to all stakeholders, including:

Individuals in the global north: Data about the plastic produced in other countries by firms based in their own country, or where they directly or indirectly own shares
Consumers in the global south: Data about the volumes and origin of single-use plastic discarded in their country and in their local area
Regulators and policy makers: Data about the full economic and environmental impact of the single-use plastic produced or imported into their country