In Kenya there is a shortage of affordable housing of up to 200,000 units per year. In addition to this, 65% of Kenyan access roads/paths are unpaved. In Nairobi alone, over 350 tons of waste plastic is generated every day. These problems have led to the growth of slum dwellings in urban areas, poor accessibility and environmental plastic pollution in our water bodies, land masses and increased greenhouse gas emissions through incineration.
Our solution named Plajiwe is a composite material made from molten waste plastic and sand seeks to address the challenge in the following ways:
- Provide a low cost building and paving blocks for the construction industry that is of high quality, durable and 100% recyclable, making it environmental friendly and a major contributor to the circular economy .
- Provide training and employment to disadvantaged youth in the collection, sorting, cleaning and processing of waste plastics for production.
- Use solar energy to run our production plant so as to further reduce the carbon footprint of our production process. This will enable us achieve our value proposition of having the paving block/building block to be low cost and also contribute to climate action due to reduced incineration and reduced use of fossil fuel energy usage.
Through a partnership with a local manufacturer, we have been able to:
- Reduce plastic waste through production of our flagship product, by up to 500 tons per year and paved 1,200 square meters of residential access roads annually.
- Employed 150 unemployed youths living in slum areas.
We have recently engaged a sheltered workshop that trains young people with mental challenges such as autism, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, etc whereby we seek to set up our own solar powered production plant within their premises so as to engage these youth economically in a sustainable manner. This will enable us reduce our production cost by up to 50%, increase production by 45% and reduce our carbon footprint by 30%.
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