A young Tanzanian entrepreneur is turning the country’s mounting plastic waste into \u201clumber\u201d to help meet demand for housing in its growing cities, in an effort to reduce depletion of forests.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Christian Mwijage decided he could tackle those problems in one go – by turning discarded plastic bottles into building materials that can be used instead of wood.<\/p>\n
His year-old company, EcoAct Tanzania, has transformed nearly 1 million kilogrammes (3.27 mln pounds) of waste into \u201cplastic lumber\u201d that can be used for fences, house beams, signposts and more.<\/p>\n
The company says it is reducing waste in the East African nation\u2019s cluttered commercial capital, while creating jobs for young people and saving trees.<\/p>\n
EcoAct Tanzania won the $10,000 Africa Finance and Investment Forum Entrepreneurship Award in Nairobi this week, which will help it grow, said founder and director Mwijage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a pressing issue in our country – I feel like we have a big problem with plastic waste,\u201d he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, explaining why he started the company in late 2015.<\/p>\n
Mwijage\u2019s home of Dar es Salaam is the biggest city in Tanzania and one of the fastest-growing on the continent, with a population of over 4 million.<\/p>\n
As in many African cities, that has led to large informal settlements and an accumulation of waste. Meanwhile, logging driven by the construction boom is ravaging Tanzania\u2019s forests.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about the increasing activity in construction and tried to combine the two problems,\u201d Mwijage said, meaning logging and waste.<\/p>\n
He realised he could also create much-needed jobs by paying people to collect, clean and sort through neighbourhood trash.<\/p>\n
EcoAct sought out parts of the city where there were piles of waste and offered to pay a small price for the usable plastic. In some cases, it pays children\u2019s health insurance in exchange for collecting their families\u2019 recyclables each week.<\/p>\n
The company produces 70 to 80 plastic logs a day, but hopes to scale up to at least 400 once it can afford a bigger machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemand is high. The challenge is production capacity,\u201d said Mwijage. The logs are cheaper than wood, he says, and more convenient because they don\u2019t attract insects and cannot rot.<\/p>\n
His hope for this year is to stop some of the deforestation happening around Mount Kilimanjaro by offering developers alternative supplies to wood. Later he hopes to expand to neighbouring Rwanda.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs long as the number of people (in cities) is increasing, opportunities are increasing,\u201d Mwijage said.\u2014The Thomson Reuters Foundation<\/p>\n
Image: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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