Conservation Watch

Last year, the Flipflopi Dhow took its maiden Lake Victoria voyage. The Flipflopi was built. Built according to traditional techniques on the island of Lamu, the Flipflopi is made entirely from recycled plastic collected along the Kenya coast- over ten tonnes of plastic waste. Around 30, 000 repurposed flipflops gave the boat its striking multi-coloured finish. The dhow was built over two years and in 2018 sailed from Lamu to Zanzibar. The voyage took three weeks and the dhow’s innovative crew stopped in villages along the way, raising awareness to the calamity caused by plastic pollution. Global plastic production is around 311 million tonnes a year, of which about 12.2 million tonnes finds its way into our seas. Plastic doesn’t bio-degrade; it just breaks into smaller pieces. This means that at our current production rate, by 2050, the ratio of plastic to fish in our seas will be 1:1 and 99 per cent of seabirds will have plastic in their bodies. Since its momentous Lamu-to-Zanzibar voyage, the dhow has been on display at the Kenya Wildlife Service headquarters at the Nairobi National Park. During the circumnavigation of Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, the crew stopped in villages along the way, raising awareness of plastic pollution to the lakeside communities of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Not content with these ground-breaking projects, the Flipflopi team has been instrumental in several spin-offs.Kwale Plastics Plus Collections (KPPC) of Diani started with land donated by the Flipflopi team. KPPC now organises beach clean-ups and waste collection in the Kwale region including Diani and Ukunda. Since 2018 they have installed 35 Green Stations where people can drop waste for recycling, and their depot sorts plastic, glass, metal and paper waste and uses each to produce different recycled goods. By inspiring people to dispose of waste properly, the team aims to clean up our land and rivers, beaches and ocean.

TheTakataka Foundation of Lamu was launched in 2019. Ali Skanda, the master craftsman who oversaw the building of the Flipflopi, donated nearly three acres of land in Lamu to be used as a recycling site – the first on the island. A workshop is currently under construction. When finished, this workshop will sort the plastic, shred it, and create moulds to make things such as eco-bricks and blocks for roads. The team has already organised several beach clean-ups and taught interested members of the community how to make eco-bricks which they then buy back. In Kisumu, in partnership with Dungu Hill Camp, a recycling hub serving this lakeside town and beyond is in the offing. Flipflopi has been assisted by some kind benefactors. The Red Cross and sister organisation Red Crescent have donated machinery such as 3D printers and lasers that help with the crushing and recycling of plastic. And Plastiki Rafiki, an initiative of the students at the International School of Kenya, has also donated machines. This student-led club is dedicated to cleaning up the environment and empowering communities to earn a living by creating goods from recycled plastic which they are then able to sell. With the help of the Open Source Plastic Recycling Community, they’re building machines for plastic moulding, some of which they have donated to the Flipflopi team. Africa has joined the world in the race to go plastic-free. Currently 16 African countries have banned plastic bags, and several have gone further with more extensive plastic bans. Kenya banned plastic bags in 2017 and this year went on to ban all single use plastic in national parks, reserves and forests. While this is good, it’s not good enough. We cannot solve this problem alone. A plastic bottle dropped in Indonesia, for instance, can find its way to the coast of Africa. The world needs to work together on this. Communities and governments, the public sector and private companies, NGOs and multinationals, all need to come together to find a solution. -The writer is the founder of www.karibukenya.co.uk and www.exclusiveethiopia.com