World Environment Day and Eco Brixs’ Growth in 2025

Andy Teale
Jun 5
3 min read

Person in plaid shirt sorts plastic bottles, holding a sack amidst piles of recyclables. Background of trees; vibrant green and brown tones.

Today celebrates the United Nations’ World Environment Day 2025, a day that encourages awareness and action for the protection of the environment.

This year’s theme is #BeatPlasticPollution and calls for collective action to tackle the huge plastic problem that is consuming our planet. This year, it is placed exactly two months before countries meet again in August for crucial talks to negotiate The Global Plastics Treaty to end plastic pollution.

This year’s theme seeks inspiration from natural and manmade real-world solutions to drive systemic change in how we manage plastic pollution. As Eco Brixs represents one of these solutions, we thought today would be the perfect time to update on our progress in 2025 so far…

GROWING ECO BRIXS AND BREAKING RECYCLING RECORDS 🎉

Pile of plastic bottles at Eco Brixs recycling facility, with a conveyor belt nearby. Trees and blue sky are visible in the background.

Continuing the trend from 2024, Eco Brixs has continued to grow in the first part of 2025, recycling more plastic waste each month and creating more green jobs for marginalised people. Our main 2-minute video gives a great overview of our socially-inclusive model.

Over the first 5 months of the year Eco Brixs has:

Cleaned up and recycled 744 tonnes of plastic waste - taking our overall tally to 2,801 tonnes recycled since we began in 2017

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Paid on average $26,600 each month to the community for their plastic waste

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Increased the number of people earning from Eco Brixs’ circular model to over 4,700 people - of which 70% are young adults, 35% are women and 10% are people with disabilities

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Continued to partner with various communities across Southern Uganda - in Masaka, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Kalangala and the Nakivale Refugee Settlement

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Highlighting our growth, we recently broke two exciting records at our Recycling Factory in Masaka, where we turn the plastic gathered by the community into Eco-Products.

In March, we recycled 163 tonnes of plastic waste - the most we’ve ever recycled in a single month! Then, on Wednesday 2nd April, we recycled the most we’ve recycled on a single day - 8 tonnes of plastic waste (the equivalent of 336,000 plastic bottles). Back in 2022, it took us a whole month to recycle 8 tonnes of plastic!

Line graph showing plastic recycled by Eco Brix from July 2023 to May 2025. Increasing trend from January 2024. Title and axes labeled.

This growth in our recycling rate not only allows us to have a massive environmental impact in Uganda, but as we buy the plastic waste from local people, it means we’ve been able to have a huge economic impact as well, empowering thousands of people to work and earn a regular income.

We’ve also expanded our work to partner with the refugee communities of Uganda. Over the past year, we’ve been establishing a baling site and network of Recycling Hubs in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement.

Two workers in green uniforms move a large bundle of plastic bottles on a dirt road. Trees and piles of plastic bags in the background. — The team from Nakivale Refugee Settlement processing bales of plastic for recycling

Over the next 12 months we also want to grow the number of women who benefit from Eco Brixs’ work, tackling barriers women face to working in Uganda. Currently, 35% of our Plastic Collectors are women and we want to grow this to 50% by mid-2026.

Finally, we’ve secured the plot of land across the road from Eco Brixs’ Recycling Factory to expand our site. This new land will serve as a location to receive the growing amounts of plastic from the community. As you can see from this 30-second Linkedin video, we were beginning to be overwhelmed by plastic on our current site!

You can see the Eco Brixs team on the new land below, and the huge piles of plastic on the current site in the background!

Eco Brixs staff in colorful clothing gathers in a grassy field listening to a speaker in a yellow shirt. Trees and a building in the background.

Eco Brixs staff team smiling in a grassy field with a pile of plastic in the background. Trees surround the area. Bright, sunny day.

With this new land, we’re aiming to grow the amount of plastic we recycle by 100 tonnes every month, recycling a total 250 tonnes monthly. This will greatly increase our environmental impact across Southern Uganda and create hundreds more green jobs for the community.

We’re thrilled to be growing Eco Brixs at such a rate and help many more people with our socially-inclusive model. By the end of the summer, we hope to have the new machine lines in place to recycle 250 tonnes of plastic a month - we'll share an update and photos of the new site in operation then! 🙌🏿

See Eco Brixs' Recycling & Job Creation Model in Action 📹

Team Eco Brixs run the Uganda Marathon!

Group of runners from Eco Brixs in white Uganda Marathon vests, smiling outdoors on grass. Trees and tents in the background, cloudy sky above.

Huge congratulations to the 30 Eco Brixs team members who ran the Uganda Marathon on 30th May, which was a wonderful day!

Eco Brixs was one of the sponsors of the event that saw 3,000 runners take on the heat and hills of Masaka, raising money for various good causes across the area. Well done Team Eco Brixs!