Research Fellow (108902-0324)

We have an exciting opportunity in the School of Engineering to contribute to the development of innovative and sustainable low carbon plastic waste management and recycling solutions.

The Project

The Garbage In-value Out (GIVO) is £1.5m project funded by FCDO with the goal of reducing environmental pollution caused by plastic waste and developing sustainable plastic waste management and recycling solutions in Nigeria. This is an interdisciplinary project with several key international stakeholders. The GIVO Project focuses on developing digital tools and infrastructure to establish decentralized, community-based plastic waste management and recycling solutions in Nigeria. The project commenced in 2022, and as of the current date, GIVO recycling centres have been established in Lagos and Abuja, Nigeria. Our GIVO centres specialize in collecting, sorting, and mechanically recycling post-consumer municipal plastic waste. They have already made a significant contribution to reducing environmental pollution caused by plastic and enhancing resource efficiency.

Our aim is to leverage digital technologies and ICT to develop a tracking and tracing system for plastic throughout the value chain, digitize plastic waste management processes, create a robust spatial and temporal database on plastic waste, and evaluate GHG emissions and conduct a Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) for the management and recycling of municipal plastic waste.

Your Role

In this project you will develop novel algorithms and methods for analysis of plastic data collected from the GIVO Centres, including data collected on waste arising, plastic collection, sorting, mechanical recycling, and off-takers. The principal focus will be to develop digital tools that can robustly and automatically extract and analyse information/datasets about post-consumer municipal plastic waste management. You will study GHG emissions and perform an LCA for GIVO plastic waste management and recycling solutions with the aim of enhancing the sustainability of GIVO solution and reducing the footprint of plastic waste management. You will also work collaboratively with the project partners based in the UK and Nigeria to apply and test these new tools to make important advances in producing detailed datasets on plastic waste journey from collection to recycling and reuse, enhancing and scaling of the GIVO solution. In the longer term we hope this work will support and inform efforts to develop robust solutions, strategies, and policies to facilitate transitioning towards a Circular Plastic Economy (CPE) in the sub-Saharan Africa region.

For informal enquiries, please contact Dr Soroush Abolfathi, Principal Investigator of the GIVO project ([email protected] ). 

We will consider applications for employment on a part-time or other flexible working basis, even where a position is advertised as full-time, unless there are operational or other objective reasons why it is not possible to do so.

Full details of the duties and selection criteria for this role can be found in the vacancy advert on the University of Warwick's jobs pages. You will be routed to this when you click on the Apply button.