From plastic waste to a greener place with Dani Nijboer

If you have followed our Instagram for a while, there’s a good chance you are familiar with one of the most inspirational and unique ambassadors of regreening: Dani! Three years ago, this young man had the fantastic idea to collect plastic bottles and use the deposit to raise funds for our projects. That he has stuck with it is an understatement, because he hit the incredible milestone of raising 1000 bunds with his very own bundraiser a while back.

Dani with plastic bottles

Cleaning it up

In The Netherlands, there is a small deposit on every plastic bottle you buy that you can get back if you return it to the store. Unfortunately, this incentive to eliminate plastic waste is not working as it should be as plenty of plastic still ends up in the environment. 

The 11-year-old Dani from Almere saw the opportunity to do something about this degradation of nature. This nature-lover collects as many plastic bottles as he can and returns them to the store. The deposit he receives immediately goes towards our projects as he buys bunds with them. This way, he removes plastic waste from his environment while regreening dry and degraded land in Sub-Saharan Africa!

Dani with shovel

Over 136.400 m2 regreened

In just three years, Dani has now raised over 1100 bunds with plastic bottles he collected in his neighbourhood. This means that we have already regreened 136.400 m2 thanks to his fantastic efforts. Way to go Dani!

For anyone wanting to know more Dani and support him in his efforts, we encourage you to go to his Instagram. And thanks to our new bundraiser page, it is now possible to directly buy bunds in the name of Dani and directly monitor how many bunds he has raised for a greener planet! You can find Dani’s bundraiser here.