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Beyond the Challenge: Meet C-Plastic, Ocean Community Challenge 2024 Finalist
- Celine Schmitt
- Mar 23
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
C-Plastic (CAPTURE PLASTIC) is an eco-venture dedicated to reducing plastic pollution in marine and coastal ecosystems. By building inclusive circular economies, the initiative transforms recovered plastic into verified environmental impact, creating green jobs and empowering coastal communities across Africa. The "C" stands for both Capture and the sea itself.
Co-founder Filipa Reis Carvalho shares: "Since participating in the Ocean Community Challenge, C-Plastic has evolved from a proof-of-concept initiative into a structured, multi-country circular economy project with measurable ambitions." Since the Challenge, the team has strengthened pilot projects in Cabo Verde in close collaboration with local associations including ADSF and advanced a scalable circular economy project in Soyo, Angola, designed as a replicable territorial model integrating plastic recovery, local processing and impact measurement. They have also submitted several international funding proposals to scale infrastructure and community inclusion. "We are no longer discussing isolated interventions — we are designing integrated territorial systems that can be replicated across coastal African regions."
The approach
Their model is built on digital traceability tools, ESG-aligned monitoring and deep collaboration with municipalities, community leaders and private sector stakeholders, creating the conditions for plastic recovery to become a credible, measurable and locally owned economic activity.
Defining moments
"The first was seeing plastic collected by local communities in Cabo Verde being transformed into school furniture. That moment translated strategy into tangible impact."
"The second was recognising that communities are not passive beneficiaries — they are capable partners."
Youth groups, informal collectors and local associations bring ownership, resilience and innovation to the work. The journey has also meant navigating real constraints: limited waste infrastructure, regulatory uncertainty around plastic credit mechanisms, trust-building across sectors and accessing early-stage capital. Navigating these challenges forced the team to design solutions genuinely adapted to local realities.
What drives the work
"What inspires me most is the possibility of transforming a visible environmental problem into a structured local economic opportunity." At its core, this work is about creating green jobs where economic opportunities are limited, redefining waste as a resource and proving that circular economy systems can be designed locally, not imported. As Filipa puts it, the work is about environmental responsibility combined with economic dignity.
Looking ahead
"In five years, if everything goes right, C-Plastic will operate multiple territorial circular hubs." The team aims to build a robust impact monitoring platform connecting communities and corporate ESG partners, become a recognised implementation partner for municipalities and ESG-driven companies and deliver documented outcomes in jobs created, tonnes recovered and communities empowered, proving that inclusive circular economy models can be both environmentally impactful and economically viable.
What success means
"Success is not defined primarily by revenue." For C-Plastic, success means communities perceiving plastic as an economic opportunity rather than pollution, young people engaging in circular economy initiatives and municipalities adopting structured recovery systems. Financial sustainability is essential, but legitimacy, trust and measurable impact define true success.
Ocean Community Challenge
"The Ocean Community Challenge came at a formative stage for us." It provided validation that ocean-focused innovation has a global community, exposure to peers navigating similar systemic challenges and a space to refine their impact model, strengthening their confidence that ocean solutions must integrate environmental, social and economic dimensions simultaneously.
We are proud to have C-Plastic in our community. Follow their journey on https://c-plastic.com/
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