Turning plastic pollution into a building solution.
My name is Nzambi Matee.
I'm from Nairobi, Kenya. And we convert plastic waste into building bricks.
I hope I will look back and I will say,
‘I created a dent in the universe, even if it's just one plastic from the environment.’
In Kenya we have plastic waste pollution problem, just like in the rest of the world.
Here in Nairobi we generate about 500 metric tonnes of plastic waste
every single day,
and only a fraction of that is recycled.
In the same same breath we have a deficit of affordable housing units,
about two million,
and this number increases with 200,000 every single year.
So, why don't you use this problem of plastic waste pollution
and convert it into alternative, affordable building products?
Hence, Gjenge was born.
Gjenge Makers is an alternative building product manufacturing company,
and our first product lines are pavers made out of recycled used plastic.
We turn waste into wanted, one brick at a time.
After you sort the plastic, you take it to the crusher,
you crush it into small flakes, you mix it with sand
and then you feed it to an extruder where it mixes the plastic and the sand into oatmeal,
like a dough-like material.
And then you take that dough-like material, you feed it in the press,
and then in maybe three minutes, you have your brick.
And that's how you make a brick.
Our building bricks are stronger, cheaper and lighter.
So they're stronger because they're made out of plastic
and plastic is polymerous in nature. It's string-like in nature.
And so when you bind with sand at high temperatures, it binds well.
When you process it, it doesn't have a lot of air pockets,
so it's less brittle, hence stronger.
It's lighter - it's almost half the weight compared to the normal concrete.
And it's cheaper. It's about 25% cheaper than the normal concrete.
So, yeah, that's our triple threat.
So plastic bricks are more environmentally friendly than concrete bricks because of two main reasons.
Number one, the sourcing of the materials.
In plastic waste, it's more closer compared to the cement.
And then number two, the CO2 emissions that emit due to the process of cement
is more than that of plastic processing of the brick.
Plastic waste is as a by-product of refining the crude oil.
How do we use that plastic over and over again until you extract its maximum value?
At the same time, how do we reduce the CO2 emissions that come due to the construction space?
I think it's time we figure out an alternative because these resources are not infinite, they're very finite.
Once you make these bricks, so we install them in sidewalks, driveways, households, also footpaths.
Big thing we are currently working on is building blocks targeting the affordable housing space.
We want to make a building. So currently right now we're in the research and development phase,
but maybe, hopefully in a month or so, sometime next year, inshallah,
we'll have the prototype ready.
Our goal is to provide a brick that will reduce the material cost by 30%,
will reduce the CO2 emissions by about 20% and the building time by half.
If we get that, I think, inshallah next year, I'll be a happy woman.
In the building space and in the construction space, we have done the same things over and over again.
And my belief is it's time for us to disrupt this space. It's time we rethink.
I think for me, pushing the boundaries and and moving to the next development
and the next solution is just
the way of growth, because if you don't grow, then ideally speaking, that means you're dying,
and the future we are going to and the future we are heading to if we want to be sustainable,
then we have to push the boundaries.
We need to be keeping and pushing those innovations out there, testing them.
Because you have two options. It either works or it doesn't.
Either way, you learn something.
I like saying, I started Gjenge it's like I jumped off a cliff without a parachute,
so I was building the plane as I was falling.
And some of the things worked, some of the things didn't work on the way.
But at the end of the day, I got fulfilment.
My hope is, or rather my aim is, where our existence as human beings
is not mutually exclusive with sustainability,
but rather it's one and the same thing. That is my hope and prayer.
Well up to now we are almost heading to about 100 metric tonnes of plastic waste by the end of this year.
Together with my team, we have been able to create job opportunities
for about 113 youths and women here in Kenya
and that I am really proud of and happy, and I hope and pray to push to double that or triple that.
We need to move and we need to build the future and build it fast.
I feel honoured and I feel like I'm in the frontline of a battlefield
and it's us against creating a sustainable path.
Let's do this.
For me, the awakening moment was in around 2017 I went to coast
and I went to the beach and there was so much plastic just coming in and touching the legs.
And for me, that was that was like a eureka moment.
I was like, ‘No, enough is enough. Something needs to change.’
I was tired of plastic everywhere,
and I was tired of complaining. Until it reached a point I was like, I need to be that someone.
So I was just tired of wait, wait - sitting there in the sidelines, so I took action.
That's when I started Gjenge.
My purpose is to build a sustainable future and in the context of actually building it literally, in the space.
My mission is to do that every single day. And to also do it with style. Yeah.
To add some sauce to it
because sometimes when you when you're in the sustainability space,
it takes time for you to see the impact
and for you to see the reaction you need time, sometimes years.
It makes work easy and it makes work a bit fun if you realise what's your purpose.
It might not come instantaneously, but it's a journey.
It's like unwrapping a gift.
The impact I hope to achieve or I'll want to achieve,
is when my time on this Earth is done when I am almost my grandmother's age,
I will look back and
I will say I created a dent in the universe.
The impact I did was I was able to extract even if it’s just one plastic from the environment
and converted it into something amazing,
something beautiful, something sustainable.
For me, that's that's my motivation. That's my drive.
It started with me and my dream in my mum's backyard, and my hope and prayer is someone else will see the same thing.
And they have a dream. They have a vision and they want to build it.
They will get the courage and the strength to do so.