On the Lamu island, off Kenya’s east coast, 47-year-old Usmail collects plastic which he then sells onto the Flipflopi Project.

The NGO was founded in 2016. It upcycles the waste into boats and furniture.

Lamu is contending with mounds of plastic waste – some washed up on its beaches, others genrated by its residents.

“We started collecting plastics a while ago,” Usmail says.

“There used to be a lot of plastic waste in this area, Lamu. We collect the plastic waste and sell it to the organization at Ksh16 per-kilogram or about 16 cents in dollars, We do not have a job. That is where we get money to educate our children and also make a living.”

The Flipflopi Project receives grants from other NGOs which they then use to buy plastic waste from locals. 

The co-founder detailshow the process unfolds at this facility.

“We go to the community, and because we have some grant, we buy from the community,” Ali Skanda starts.

“And we have our transport agents who bring the plastic to us. After pre-sorting, we have our sorters, and they categorize into different type and colours. After the separation, we send them to the shredding point where we break them into flakes, into small particles. Then we get some lumbers of different shapes, round, square, like a piece of wood, and then from those lumbers of different colours, is when now we pick it and we make furniture.”

The NGO also conducts research on what to do with plastic. 

Indeed, Skanda says recycling also comes with challenges. 

He says nowadays, plastic manufacturers are adding additives into plastics, which makes it more difficult to recycle. 

Elsewhere, some plastics may be degraded by the sun and lose quality. 

In principle, almost all plastic can be recycled. But items with different types of plastic for example and plasticcontaminated by substances can hardly be recycled.

Since 2019, the NGO has been sailing Flipflopi, claimed to be the world’s first recycled plastic sailing daʊ 

It notably sailed from the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria. 

Two boats were launched subsequently.