NoWa | Josette

Name of the submitted project or idea (in English or both English and your language)

From Trash to Treasure
URL of a video introducing the work（under 5 minutes）

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhj6wwa2-sI
Detailed explanation of the submitted project or idea (in English or both English and your language)

The mobile phone is an iconic product that everyone is busy with all day long. Let's make people aware of the value of waste with this product. In a nice way! Let's reduce that big pile of electronic waste together and make something really beautiful with it. If we want to strive for a circular economy, we must make this tangible for everyone.

It’s our mission to reduce e-waste, reuse old phones, and turn them into something beautiful. Only then can we reuse valuable resources—like gold and silver hidden in your old phone. We envision a world where there is no waste and where people hand in their old electronics. We make sure these electronic devices are being recycled properly.

NoWa is an award winning organization, listed as one of the most innovative companies in the Netherlands. The NewYork Times wrote an article about NoWa and the Dutch queen Maxima is wearing a NoWa bracelet.
How does your work address the 3 P’s (for Planet, for People, for Profit) for Sustainability?

We want to stimulate people in handing in their old phones. By showing the value of waste. These phones would otherwise just lay around in people’s houses.

On the one hand: the amount of recycled gold and silver we use for our jewelry results in several amounts of phones saved from African waste dumps. On the other hand through our collection campaigns we also collected tens of thousands of mobile phones in the Netherlands up until now.

This results in tangible social impact.
More recycling
Less pollution
CO2 less emission
Less damage to the environment
Fewer health hazards

However, we create social impact in different levels. For example by working with ICT vanaf
Morgen, a social enterprise which handles our collected phones. They train people with a distance to the labour market. All our jewelry is made and wrapped by people with a distance to the labour market. And of course we create impact by reaching lots of people with our story.
Where (country, region, etc.) have you primarily carried out your project?

The Netherlands
What is the timeline your project has taken place over?

2019-2023
Keywords

#recycling #circulareconomy #NoWaste
If you have a website for your submitted project or idea, please provide the URL

https://thisisnowa.com/
If you have a social media account for your submitted project or idea, please provide the URL

@this_is_nowa
Special Prize Question 1: Is there a mechanism in place to inherit culture and industry as assets for people living in that area 100 or even 1000 years from now?

More than 50 millions tons of e-waste is thrown away every year worldwide
Less than 20% of e-waste is recycled worldwide. In Africa this is even less at approximately 2%.
Special Prize Question 2: What is the positive impact on biodiversity? Is the project creating a cycle not just from a human-centered perspective but for the entire ecosystem?

Reusing valuable resources is better for environment and health.
Special Prize Question 3: Are you enabling new forms of collaboration with others? New forms of collaboration might include cross-industry cooperation, co-creation with consumers, or role transformations within the supply chain.

Yes we are collaborating with tech companies and telco's, with the Dutch government and other companies.
We are making a new standard for creating jewelry. This very intransparant sector should become more transparant. We are the only jewelry company which knows exactly where their metals are coming from.