Nigeria: Teens upcycle rubbish in modern fashion show- “Trashion” held in 2022

How would you recycle rubbish? Wait! Would you care to recycle.

If you ask people the three R’s to save the environment, most will answer you with – Reduce,Reuse, Recycle. But how many of us follow this answer? Rubbish is generated by us everyday at our own homes. Do we do anything about this? For most people, the answer is to throw them in the bin – but not one Nigerian conservation group, which worked with young activists and models to transform the rubbish into fashion.

Greenfingers Wildlife Conservation has been leading community clean-ups in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, since 2012.

Lagos which is one of Africa’s most populous cities with more than 15 million people, generates at least 12,000 metric tons of waste daily, authorities say. And implementation of environmental laws is poor: The World Bank estimates that pollution kills at least 30,000 people in this city every year.

But on Saturday, all their attention was diverted to the catwalk and created a show as a new way to advocate for waste reduction named – trashion.

Chinedu Mogbo, founder of Greenfingers Wildlife Conservation, said there was not enough education about pollution and climate issues and so events like the trashion show were the perfect vehicle to entertain and educate.

“We want young people to be a part of the advocacy for life on land and in water,” explained Mogbo, who has already set himself the aim of recycling as many plastics as possible “one community at a time”.

So the trashion show was one way to take this rubbish collections “a step further” and reuse some of the waste which “wasn’t recycled before”, he said.

The waste – which was collected during the group’s regular rubbish clean-ups at drainage ditches, beaches and across communities – eventually found its way onto the runway as part of the show.

Teenage climate activists in Nigeria’s largest city are recycling trash into runway outfits for a “Trashion Show.”

Chinedu believes that “Nigeria’s priority is on their use of oil”, and the idea of “sustainability is just gaining ground gradually”.

And it seems those who took part were inspired by the looks they created.

“I decided to take part in this year’s show because I really want to make change[…] we can see that we are all being affected by the climate change, so I really want to make a difference,” said 16-year-old model, Nethaniel Edegwa.