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Social entrepreneur Bilikiss Adebiyi, 31, is cleaning up Nigerias trash crisis

HREE YEARS AGO, Bilikiss Adebiyi saw a BBC documentary about her hometown of Lagos, Nigeria, and was appalled. People were living on top of garbage, she says. While earning her MBA at MIT, Adebiyi devised a strategy to both clean up Lagos and tackle poverty: Give people Bilikiss incentives to Adebiyi recycle. After graduation, Adebiyi returned to Lagos to launch her company, Wecyclers. On a fleet of 13 cargo bikes, her 16 employees pick up plastic and aluminum from households. Participants earn points for the waste they save and can exchange them for items like food or cell phone minutes. So far, 15,000 people have recycled 62 tons of waste. The community is cleaner now, she says. But we still have a long way to go. Melissa Bykofsky