Canada may be a long way from humanity’s first home, but the North American government is offering CAD 14.5m (EUR 9.9m) in financial support to fight the spread of plastics into marine areas in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Afri-Plastics Challenge is seeking to help communities throughout the region to prevent plastics waste from entering the marine environment by finding ways to minimise reliance on plastics and new ways of managing the refuse.

The first part of the challenge, which is run by UK charity Nesta, is already underway and seeks small and medium-sized enterprises that have a proof of concept and the ability to scale nationally or regionally to reach a high target number of people, particularly engaging women and girls.