A group of teenagers wades through a sea of plastic bottles, food cans, and bags that have lined a waterway in a district of Lagos, Nigeria's megacity. They clean up the recycled plastic and place it in waste bags while wearing gloves and masks.

Their goal is to allow water to flow around the waterway built to avoid flooding in the city's Sangotedo neighborhood, while also creating awareness about the issues triggered by single-use plastic.

"We need to move now or it will be too late in a few years to do something," said Esohe Ozigbo, a 15-year-old climate change campaigner who heads the community of young people, on the importance of addressing environmental concerns.

Plastic waste is everywhere in Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa's most populated region, with a population of more than 20 million inhabitants, where littering is normal.

Ozigbo and her fellow activists glue plastic to cloth to create clothes that they wear in their annual "Trashion Show" to amplify their point about the amount of pollution in Lagos.

Greenfingers Wildlife Initiative, a non-profit environmental organization supported by grants, collaborates with young people to schedule the displays in shopping malls. The organization's president, Chinedu Mogbo, said that the mission is to "balance imagination with advocacy."

"Rather than just tossing everything, we wanted to freshen things up and launch the Trashion Show," he said.

In the early April parking lot of a Lagos shopping center, shoppers saw teens dressed in multicolored shopping bags, garbage bags, and water bottles.

Ozigbo, who is inspired by Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, said she wished the shows helped shoppers aware of their acts.

"We're all teens, so we're trying to make a difference in the world," she said.