$1 funds the collection, transport, and processing of 10 lbs of plastic waste that would otherwise likely end up in the ocean. That’s the equivalent of stopping 227 water bottles! 

Collecting plastic waste before it enters the environment is highly cost-effective compared to other solutions addressing the ocean plastic crisis. Collecting waste from households is generally the most affordable approach; plastic gets progressively more difficult and expensive to clean up once it is in poorly managed landfills, the environment, or eventually the ocean. Read more here.

Each dollar also ensures that waste workers earn a stable income in safe and dignified working conditions.

CleanHub has a passionate, dedicated team of professionals.  Founders Joel Tasche and Florin Dinga have backgrounds in entrepreneurship and software engineering. Lakshmi Menon, the Head of Impact in India, has more than 5 years of experience in the waste management sector in India, working with informal waste collectors to improve their livelihoods. You can see the full team here.

While the team has great promise, CleanHub is also a newer organization that has not yet been tested over the long term.

Mission: “We’re on a mission to put a CleanHub in every coastal community that doesn’t have proper waste management. People everywhere will have their trash collected and managed in a safe, dignified way."  

Vision: “A world free of plastic pollution.”

Values: Maximize impact • Empower communities • Reduce & recover • Do no harm • Set high standards

CleanHub’s approach of collecting waste from households and businesses is a straightforward and effective way to remove plastic waste while it’s still relatively simple to manage.

Their core technology is an app (certified by TÜV SÜD / ISO) which all of their local collection partners use, allowing CleanHub to remotely oversee the flow of collected plastic from initial collection all the way to recovery.

Although it takes their partners some time to adjust their processes to start tracking the waste, the app itself is simple to use and offers world-class traceability without needing any new hardware.

CleanHub’s approach of household waste collection, enhanced by their traceability software, is intentionally developed so that it can be used across coastal regions of the world (currently active on three continents).  It’s an elegant design that works in low-resource settings, and has already been used successfully in a wide range of locations and organizations. 

While the solution is extremely scalable, there are some limitations in CleanHub’s ability to expand to new locations: the time and effort to set up new collection partners (vetting, training, monitoring, and running pilots), and the need to select operations near a cement plant that meets their standards for co-processing (converting plastic to energy).

CleanHub helps their collection partners build better processes that are sustainable, effective, and stand the test of time.  

It is really difficult for organizations working in waste management to make money, and CleanHub helps by adding an additional stream of income from the non-recyclable waste which they otherwise could not make money from. This has enabled some collection partners to implement new socially-responsible practices (e.g. improved benefits for workers) that hadn’t seemed possible previously due to lack of funding. 

CleanHub’s data also helps community waste organizations prove the need for their solutions, making it easier to access government subsidies and funding. This is another income stream that will help them become financially sustainable in the long term.

CleanHub is a key player helping to build the growing ‘plastic credit’ market (i.e. plastic offsets, that work similarly to carbon offsets). As this market grows, we expect that these solutions will become more and more self-sustaining, but for the time being, external investment is still needed to cover the gap until they can be self-sustaining. 

A key piece needed for local waste management organizations to become self-sustaining is to change people’s behavior so that they sort their waste before disposal.  Currently, 70% of the waste collected is not recyclable - often because it has been contaminated. CleanHub and its collection partners are working to raise awareness and educate households about the need to separate waste.

In this case, risk of reversal could be defined as waste returning to the environment after collection, or else as collection being stopped (e.g. because a collection partner goes out of business). 

CleanHub has specifically chosen co-processing (converting the waste into energy for cement plants) to ensure that the plastic waste they collect can never return to the environment again. You can read more about their rationale here.

The risk of waste collection stopping is minimized by CleanHub’s careful partner selection process. CleanHub ensures that the partners they work with have strong and balanced local teams of field staff, project managers, admin and executive team members. The infrastructure built (e.g. sorting facilities) is always planned for the long term. They also ensure that partners have legal permissions to execute the projects (to avoid the risk of being unexpectedly shut down).

CleanHub has not disclosed public financial information, and does not require detailed cost breakdowns from their collection partners, although they do benchmark the collection costs for each partner against others doing similar work.  

Operational transparency is part of CleanHub’s DNA. Their live dashboard has a real-time feed that shows exactly what is happening at every stage as the waste is collected and processed.  Each event is proof of plastic being collected and processed. On average, they receive more than 70 data points a day and all of them include picture proof.  CleanHub has detailed profiles of each collection partner on their site, and regularly shares photos and stories from the teams on the ground via social media.

Updates on progress will be made available monthly, including photos and videos. DDC will have access to a personal dashboard (like this one) tracking our impact, plastic collected to date, and updates from the collection partners.

Founded in January 2020, the organization is just under 5 years old.

CleanHub has collected more than 9,500 metric tons of plastic and connected over 225,000 households to waste management. They have converted 2.438 of those tons into energy for cement plants, producing 13 GWh of energy (enough electricity to power 1,648.57 average western homes for an entire year). You can see the latest annual statistics in their dashboard. 

CleanHub has established a network collection partners in South and South East Asia, Eastern Africa, and Central America and partnered with more than 300 brands to fund ocean-bound plastic removal.

(As of August 2024)

CleanHub’s technology and platform are relatively new; they’ve been demonstrated to be effective for over 4 years. However, most of their collection partners are much older (ranging from 3-22 years old) and have proven success at building waste management solutions for half a decade or more. The local teams have a strong knowledge of all aspects of waste management. 

We see CleanHub’s commitment to their core values in their strategy of intentionally going after the plastics that are hardest to recover.  They focus on plastics that have no commercial value, in areas that aren't popular or easy to work in (and where it is more difficult to attract funding.) The process of waste collection is messy and difficult – especially for waste like unrecyclable plastic, which organizations actually have to pay to get rid of (unlike recyclables, which can be sold).  The team has stepped up to the challenge with tons of passion and creativity. 

CleanHub also uses their core values to screen potential partners. Their website explains how each partner embodies these values; see an example at the bottom of this page.

CleanHub’s big goal is to “put a CleanHub in every coastal community that doesn’t have proper waste management. People everywhere will have their trash collected and managed in a safe, dignified way”.  Ultimately, they envision “a global circular plastic system, where an organization always has to take one ton of plastic out of use before they’re allowed to put a new one in.”

In the meantime, CleanHub is working to help as many households as possible get access to waste management. Their near-term goal is to reach 10,000 tons of waste collected by the end of 2024. For scale, that’s roughly one-sixth of the amount of plastic that Indonesia released into the ocean in 2021. 

In addition to the overall goal, each collection partner is given a target on the volumes for collection and social compliance; an example is here.

CleanHub estimates that it will cost about $3.5 billion per year to achieve this 50% reduction goal.

$1 funds the collection and processing of 11 lbs (5 kg) of plastic waste, covering every step from collection through to safe disposal (recycling or use as fuel in a cement plant). 

CleanHub measures the amount of plastic collected, sorted, and sent to energy recovery facilities, as well as the amount of energy produced.  

CleanHub is also digitizing household collection (with QR codes on each house that are scanned) so that they can measure the number of households served.

They also conduct a social impact audit for all partners to see how the partners are supporting their workers. They work with partners to improve the health and safety standards. This is all monitored and verified.

CleanHub monitors plastic cleanup operations continuously with the app. Proof of work is uploaded via their app throughout the collection, sorting and transportation of plastic. Every collection and processing is geotagged and time-stamped. The current collection progress can be viewed here.

CleanHub also visits projects in-person to monitor and verify that partners are following their plans. They meet the team and interact with the workers to understand the on-the-ground operations in detail.

Ocean plastic pollution is a symptom of poor waste management and poor design in packaging. CleanHub is attempting to address the former and to some extent, the latter. 

Waste ends up in the environment because of poor collection systems; CleanHub helps improve these systems by providing the funding needed to collect and process low-value plastic waste. The organization also generates rich data that is shared with the local authorities to advocate for improved waste collection; this has been successful at getting the government to engage in building better waste management. 

On the other side of the problem, CleanHub also helps brands assess their plastic footprints and design strategies to reduce their impact. 

Cleaning up plastic that is already mid-ocean would be very symptom focused, rivers would be close to root, and household clean-up is even closer to the root. At the source of the problem, policy change is needed to phase out single use plastics; this is not a core focus of CleanHub’s work.

CleanHub is a for-profit social enterprise that helps brands offset their plastic footprint.  

CleanHub’s collection partners often struggle to build financially self-sustaining models because the waste collected and sold to recyclers is not enough to cover all their costs.  To bridge this gap, CleanHub’s platform matches them with responsible brands who finance the plastic collection. 

Collection partners often use the data generated by CleanHub to advocate for more government support. Oftentimes the local governments don’t have usable data; once CleanHub can show them the work that’s being done, officials see that it’s possible and that the collection partner is credible – and the government will sometimes help finance project expansions.

CleanHub’s “asset-light” model intentionally focuses on supporting other organizations’ efforts and systems rather than replacing them. Their deliberate focus on non-recyclable plastics (rather than recyclable materials which have value and are therefore already collected by the informal sector) ensures that they are having a truly additional impact, rather than replacing or disrupting existing efforts.  

CleanHub is careful to ensure that their collection partners are local organizations that engage the people from their communities. This means that the whole team on ground are people from the community (often, these are people who previously were informal waste collectors).  Any solution is discussed with this team and implemented by them. This ensures that solutions are always locally-driven.

Our vetting has uncovered no negative influences on indigenous populations.  

CleanHub prioritizes working with the people who have traditionally been working in waste management, and ensures that collection partners are engaging the people (e.g. waste-pickers) that were already working in these communities rather than displacing them.

CleanHub also has a rigorous process for its social audits, (they use expert auditors to conduct in-person audits of the complete operations of the collection partners). This process includes interviews of the local workers, which helps ensure that the work is not having a negative impact on the local communities.

CleanHub collects data that helps prove the need for access to waste management for everyone (as well as effective processing of the waste after collection). Through this they aim to raise awareness and drive system-level change in waste management in developing countries.

Their work reduces plastic pollution (and to some extent, plastic use) - with the ultimate aim of cutting plastic pollution off at the source.  We believe that stopping plastic at the source is the most effective long-term solution to the plastic problem. 

In the meantime, plastics can take 450 years or more to break down in the ocean, and damage ecosystems in long-lasting and major ways. Once plastics reach the ocean, they become very difficult or impossible to remove. By removing ocean-bound plastics, CleanHub is preventing hundreds of years of environmental damage that these plastics will cause.

One potential risk is that when CleanHub’s end users see plastic as a solvable problem (e.g. because it’s collected and out of sight), it can stop feeling like a pressing issue. This might lead these people to focus less on reducing their plastic use, or to become less careful about separating waste.

A potential risk with solutions like CleanHub’s is that they could remove pressure on local governments to improve waste management, effectively privatizing a public service that the government should really be responsible for.  CleanHub is intentional about using the data that they generate to prove to the government that improved waste collection is needed, and get more support.

The risk of workers being harmed is minimal, thanks to the safety practices that CleanHub has standardized. CleanHub also monitors the accident reports which collection partners are legally required to file.

One problem that CleanHub has seen is that when they help households get better at sorting their waste, the recyclable waste is conveniently separated and therefore easily stolen and resold by other people.  This affects project budgets because the collection partner loses out on the revenues they would have made from selling the waste.

CleanHub has weighed a few difficult tradeoffs in their decision to convert non-recyclable plastics to energy. One risk is that if co-processing is poorly controlled, it can release toxins and pollutants into the environment as a byproduct. CleanHub has intentionally chosen a high-quality, internationally known partner (Geocycle) where they feel this risk is minimal. Another downside of co-processing is that the plastic needs to be transported to the facility. Because of CleanHub’s high standards for the facilities they work with, this distance is sometimes really far – increasing the cost and carbon footprint.  CleanHub is constantly scanning the field for other solutions for safely disposing of non-recyclables. They are convinced that co-processing is currently the best solution.

CleanHub’s goal to “reduce the influx of plastic into the oceans by 50% by 2030” is very audacious. If achieved, it would have a very meaningful impact on the global plastic pollution problem.

The scale of the ocean plastic pollution crisis is massive, and while many organizations have tried to tackle the problem, few have been able to make a meaningful dent in the problem. Organizations often struggle to find affordable, effective, and sustainable solutions – many other ocean plastic removal approaches cost far more than CleanHub’s approach per kilogram collected.

CleanHub is excellent at finding thoughtful, scrappy solutions to problems as they arise. They’ve made changes in their app to improve waste collection, such as using machine learning to predict the amount of plastic that will come in in a batch of waste; tracking cloth waste as a separate stream; automatically analyzing photos for mismatches between the amount of waste reported and the amount pictured; and safety compliance reminders (e.g. flagging when waste workers are not wearing shoes or gloves and sending feedback). 

To change individual people’s mindsets and behaviors around plastic waste, CleanHub has also run workshops and clean-up drives to increase awareness. They are also experimenting with other solutions for nonrecyclable plastic, including pyrolysis (converting plastic into an oil that is used as fuel) and creating new products (pellets).

According to the WWF, “In our oceans, which provide the largest natural carbon sink for greenhouse gasses, plastic leaves a deadly legacy. It directly chokes and smothers a host of marine animals and habitats and can take hundreds of years to break down. As it does, sunlight and heat cause the plastic to release powerful greenhouse gasses, leading to an alarming feedback loop. As our climate changes, the planet gets hotter, the plastic breaks down into more methane and ethylene, increasing the rate of climate change, and so perpetuating the cycle”.

11 million tons of plastic enters the oceans each year, and the problem is getting worse. Half of all plastics ever manufactured have been made in the last 15 years, and a recent study has shown that without immediate action, the amount of plastic entering the ocean each year could nearly triple by 2040.