Let's turn trash into cash. My name is Nzambi Matee, I'm the founder of Gjenge Makers Ltd. and we convert plastic waste into building products.
Plastic waste is not just a Kenya problem, but it's a worldwide problem. Here in Nairobi, we generate about 500 metric tons of plastic waste every single day, and only a fraction of that is recycled. We decided what more can we do instead of just sitting in the side lines and complaining.
Essentially, companies have to pay to dispose the waste, so we solved their problem. The waste essentially comes for free. This is the plastic waste you get from factories.
This we mix with sand, as the plastic is like the binder. We have three machines. The extruder does the mixing of plastic waste, with sand, at very high temperatures.
And then the press compresses it. Plastic is fibrous in nature. And so therefore, the brick ends up having a stronger compression strength.
Does that look like waste to you? It's almost half the weight. So therefore, during transportation and installation, it's faster in terms of cost implication.
We right now have a capacity of producing 1000 to 1500 bricks a day. So far, we have recycled 20 metric tons, and we are looking to push that value to 50 by the end of next financial year. Winning the Young Champions of the Earth award is a huge motivation booster for us as a team.
It's been a long, three-year journey. And so, this was like someone saying, "I see what you're doing. And I appreciate that.
" And with this platform, we're looking to see how we can get on board partners to scale this solution, not just in Kenya, but all over Africa, just to start. And in addition to that, be able to impact and motivate other people and other youth to do similar things in different places. So right now, we are just making paving blocks, but we now want to make actual building blocks.
As I like saying, you have to be true to your why. Why are you doing this? What is the motivation behind it?
For me, I was just tired of being in the side-lines of seeing plastic. I really jumped in, off a cliff without even a parachute. I was building it as I was falling down, but isn't that how great things are done?
So act. For nature.
