In Ibadan, Nigeria, plastic waste is everywhere, and old traditional crafts are slowly disappearing. In the middle of this, Adejoke Lasisi found her purpose. Born into a family of weavers, she started learning how to make Aso-Oke, a traditional Yoruba fabric, from her mother when she was just nine years old. As she grew up, she continued to watch and learn from the rich weaving traditions around her. After studying economics at university, Adejoke decided to take a different path, one that would combine her love for traditional craft with a deep concern for the environment.
When discarded plastic sachets and textile scraps began to clutter her hometown, Adejoke asked herself a question: why not transform this waste into something beautiful and useful? She experimented endlessly until she developed a method to strip waste nylons and weave them, alongside fabric remnants, into handbags, slippers, mats and accessories. The material was ninety percent recycled nylon and ten percent traditional textile thread, a vibrant testament to creative reuse.
In 2020 she formally launched Planet 3R, a social enterprise grounded in the principles of reduce reuse recycle. From empty sachets destined for drains, she began weaving hope. The enterprise would grow to collect nearly a million kilograms of waste. It produced eco-friendly products, cleaned up neighbourhoods, and created pathways to income for unemployed youths and women.
Planet 3R became more than a craft studio. It became a movement. Adejoke’s team trained over a thousand youth and mobilised school programs that reached thousands of students, teaching them how waste could be transformed. She opened Jokelinks Weaving School to preserve traditional weaving while infusing it with sustainability and entrepreneurship.
Numbers tell part of the story: fifty creative awareness programs, more than ninety-eight tons of recycled waste kept from landfills, a workforce of sixteen craft innovators, dozens of eco-friendly product designs. But the deeper story is in the people—a young graduate who trained in Planet 3R now runs her own weaving micro-business; a community who once burned plastics now gleans pride from products made by hand.
Recognition came naturally. Adejoke received Nigeria’s Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Award of the Year. She earned both the Africa Green Grant Award and national honours as a youth innovator. Her path inspired many and drew global attention as living proof that art, sustainability and social justice can converge.
Her work stands at the intersection of tradition and innovation. It is rooted in the old textile form of Aso-Oke while reimagining it with plastic waste. It is craftsmanship reborn for the circular economy. And for communities long written off by neglect, it is confirmation that their stories and waste, can be transformed.
Adejoke Lasisi did not set out to become a “wastepreneur.” She set out to care for her environment, to preserve her heritage, and to empower others. Her mission is woven into every stitch, every recycled thread, and every life lifted through her eco-fashion revolution.
In turning waste into wealth she has done far more: she has sewn dignity into discarded material, created new value where none existed, and shown that sustainable fashion can be a path to social change as much as style.
