Interviews and Special Feature with Yahuza Sani Hudu – Team Lead, CleanUp MDC
- CleanUp MDC uses a toll-free, AI-powered phone line to help people recycle in their local language. What inspired you to develop a solution that works even without an internet connection or a smartphone?
What inspired this work was witnessing how global solutions often fail to reach the people who need them most. In many low-income and remote communities, people care deeply about their environment, but technology has left them behind. No internet. No smartphone. Sometimes, even literacy is a barrier. So we built a solution that meets people where they are, a simple toll-free phone call in Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Pidgin, or English. You speak, the AI understands, and the nearest waste collector is connected instantly. For the first time, people who were excluded from climate solutions now participate fully and earn income from their waste. That inclusion is the heart of CleanUp MDC.
- What does a ‘circular economy’ look like in a Kaduna community, in practice?
In Kaduna, the circular economy looks deeply human. It starts with a mother dialling our toll-free number on her basic phone, speaking in Hausa to recycle bottles flooding her compound. Moments later, an informal collector, often a young person, arrives, collects the waste, and earns from it. That plastic then enters our system, gets sorted, and processed at a recycling centre. The loop continues, households sort, collectors earn, CleanUp MDC recycles, and communities become cleaner and safer. It is simple, accessible, and built around the realities of people who have been overlooked for too long.
- Since the Civic Tech Fellowship closed out, what are you most proud of achieving with your solution? (Share a specific milestone, a new partnership, or a story of real-world impact that has happened in recent months.)
CleanUp MDC has gained significant national and global recognition for its inclusive, AI-powered recycling model. Our work has been featured on BBC News, showcased at the African Union Pavilion (2025), and I was honoured as a Youth Climate Innovator at the Second African Climate Summit in Addis Ababa, presenting before African Heads of State and global leaders. CleanUp MDC also became a member of the Children and Youth Major Group to the UN Environment Programme (CYMG), ensuring the voices of marginalised communities are represented in global policy spaces. Through our toll-free, local-language JoliTrash system, we have reached over 30,000 users across Kaduna and Abuja, are positioned to recycle 10,000 tons of plastic waste annually, and contribute to 25,000 tons of CO₂ reductions each year. We won the Startup Grind All-Star AI Pitch Battle, were named one of the Startups of the Year across Silicon Valley, and partnered with NEST Africa AI Innovation Lab for data-driven impact measurement, as well as the Kaduna State ICT Hub for technical support to scale our innovation.
- Looking ahead, what does the next chapter look like for your initiative?
The future is about scale and deeper inclusion. We are expanding to onboard micro-recycling hubs across Northern Nigeria so every local government can process waste locally and create jobs. We are also upgrading JoliTrash so every caller, whether they have a smartphone or not, can track their impact and earnings. Our dream collaboration is with state governments and major recycling partners to embed voice-powered recycling into public systems, making access universal. When millions can lift themselves economically by simply making a phone call in their own language, we know we have changed the story.
Quick Fire Round:
Quick-fire round. Are you ready?
Let’s gooo
Toll-Free AI Model or Mobile App?
Toll-free AI Model because that’s where inclusion begins
Office Desk or Community Landfill?
Community landfill. That’s where the real problems and real solutions are found.
DreamCollab?
Coca-Cola Foundation to scale circularity from household waste to national impact.