Ahmed Ajlani & Rima Mezlini
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https://www.instagram.com/echarika.tn/
Our project aimed to develop a comprehensive platform for individuals seeking to change or improve their homes and personal belongings. The platform facilitate buying, selling, exchanging, and donating items like furniture, electronics, and materials. We plan to create a circular economy practice to reduce the waste and promote the environmental and sustainable solutions by implementing our project. We have developed the webpage to have user profiles, a marketplace with search and filter options, a secure transaction system, and a commission management system. The income generated planned to be used as donations to those in need to ensure that the people can benefit from the process. Our platform for trade of used items in Tunisia is a valuable tool that supports both economy and the environment. It allows people to buy and sell second-hand goods at affordable prices, helping reduce waste and promote sustainable consumption.
In context; where many are looking for cost-effective solution, such a platform encourage a culture of reuse supports local communities, and offers an easy, digital way to extend the life of products while contributing to the awareness on sustainable consumption practices among the people in general population.
We have tried to understand the tools that are already exists such as Facebook groups, flea markets, the other online/offline tools that the people uses to buy/sell used items to understand the market conditions. In Tunisia, overconsumption is a huge issue. When we checked the statistics while developing our project; we realised that Tunisia generates approximately 2.6 million tonnes of solid waste annually, with 85% disposed of in landfills and the remainder often dumped in unregulated sites. The lack of adequate recycling or re-use infrastructure exacerbates the problem, leading to environmental pollution and health hazards. Plastic pollution alone is estimated to cost Tunisia’s economy $20 million annually, affecting tourism, shipping, and fishing industries.
Thus, our project born to tackle with this challenge while promoting sustainable consumption through an online platform and increase the reuse aspect to reduce the consumption within our possibilities. In initial phase, we have reached out around 60 people to test, develop and promote the project idea and make the people trust our platform to contribute to the circular economy practices.
In this phase, we plan to focus on building a strong community that values to reuse aspect of the materials that are already exists and we plan to use the income that generated from the project to use in the employment opportunities as well as providing aid to the people in need. Currently, our platform is a web platform and we plan to develop a mobile app to reach out more users especially in Tunisia where the mobile phones are used more often then the computers. We as well plan to cooperate with the environmental groups to promote reuse and reduce the waste aspect in the country while contributing to the economy. We believe that; over time, the platform can expand into new categories and regions, and even partner with environmental groups to promote reuse and reduce waste.
