16/02/22

Building a future from plastic waste

Collected plastic bottles as raw materials. Copyright: SuSanA Secretariat, CC BY 2.0

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<h1>Building a future from plastic waste</h1>
<h4></h4>
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<h4>Season 2, Episode 21</h4>
<p>Just a few years ago, Nzambi Matee decided to do something about the plastic pollution that she saw all over Kenya. Now, she has designed and built a thriving recycling and brick production facility, and her social enterprise Gjenge Makers has recycled plastic waste weighing more than five female elephants.</p>
<p>This week on Africa Science Focus, reporter Michael Kaloki takes a tour of Matee’s workshop – and finds out how she is tackling Kenya’s pollution problem, one brick at a time.</p>
<p><strong><em>Africa Science Focus</em></strong><strong>, with Halima Athumani. </strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/role-models/qa-my-purpose-is-to-go-where-no-one-else-has-gone/"><strong>Learn more about </strong><strong>Nzambi Matee’s career</strong></a><br />
<a href="https://www.carnegie.org/"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1894676 lazyload" data-src="https://www.scidev.net/global/wp-content/uploads/Carnegie1.png" alt="Carnegie" width="426" height="200" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" style="--smush-placeholder-width: 426px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 426/200;" /><noscript><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1894676 lazyload" data-src="https://www.scidev.net/global/wp-content/uploads/Carnegie1.png" alt="Carnegie" width="426" height="200" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" style="--smush-placeholder-width: 426px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 426/200;" /><noscript><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1894676" src="https://www.scidev.net/global/wp-content/uploads/Carnegie1.png" alt="Carnegie" width="426" height="200" /></noscript></noscript></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em>This programme was funded by the <a href="https://www.carnegie.org/">Carnegie Corporation of New York</a>.</em></p>
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<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/podcast/building-a-future-from-plastic-waste/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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Season 2, Episode 21

Just a few years ago, Nzambi Matee decided to do something about the plastic pollution that she saw all over Kenya. Now, she has designed and built a thriving recycling and brick production facility, and her social enterprise Gjenge Makers has recycled plastic waste weighing more than five female elephants.

This week on Africa Science Focus, reporter Michael Kaloki takes a tour of Matee’s workshop – and finds out how she is tackling Kenya’s pollution problem, one brick at a time.

Africa Science Focus, with Halima Athumani.

Learn more about Nzambi Matee’s career