Plastic Man
Meet Modou Fall, a 48 year old former soldier turned environmentalist from Dakar, Senegal, who has dedicated the past 15 years of his life fighting the war on waste. Known as 'plastic man’, thanks to his homemade suit constructed out of plastic bags and cups, Modou is on a mission to repurpose old tyres and use them to plant trees across his country.
In 1998, Modou was stationed in rural eastern Senegal as an army officer, when he noticed herds of cows were getting sick after consuming fragments of plastic bags. It was a lightbulb moment: he had witnessed firsthand the impact of waste on the environment. Modou left the military and set up a t-shirt stall in Dakar’s busy Sandaga market. Shocked by the amount of packaging, he tried to persuade fellow shopkeepers to dispose of their waste properly, but no one listened. Fed up with waiting, Modou spent 13 days cleaning up the market himself. and then decided to broaden his mission.
In 2006 he used his lifesavings of $500 to start his foundation Clean Senegal. Dressed in his ‘plastic man’ costume, Modou approached shoppers at markets, offering to trade their plastic bags for paper ones. When they agreed, he’d tie their plastic bags to his costume, adding to its colour and craziness and he soon became a regular presence at protests and events.
In 2020 Modou launched a new project: Million Trees, Million Tyres. Throughout Senegal, old tyres lie strewn across roads and beaches with few prospects for reuse. After watching a YouTube video, Modou taught himself how to transform tyres into planters, and set himself a mission to plant one tree for every home across the country. Today, Modou’s army of volunteers provide thousands of seeds and tyres a year, and local lime, mango and moringa trees are already providing shade and nutrition across Dakar. With lockdowns easing, Modou’s planting mission is ramping up again, with local schools and authorities jumping on board.
“If you have the means to build a mosque, you do that. If you don’t, fine. If you have the means to build a hospital for people to treat themselves at, you do that. If you don’t have the means, fine. But one thing everyone can do is to plant a tree.”
