Turning Plastic Waste Problem to a Building Solution
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8.3 Billion Metric Tons of Plastic Waste Reside in Landfills | AP
Nzambi Matee, a material scientist, says "I get excited when I see waste, because I know that's life for us."
The fact that plastic does not sink is precisely what intrigued Matee.
"I came across this concept of using plastic to make building blocks," she explained. Tons of plastic clogs drains, pollutes rivers and contaminates animal feed around the world, and some of it ends up at the Dandora landfill, in Kenya. The site reached its capacity and was supposed to have been shut down 20 years ago.
But every day, waste pickers trudge through the rancid trash sifting for plastic. It wasn't easy for Matee to figure out whether she really could turn the waste material into useable building bricks. When it finally worked, "that was the best day ever," she said.
"It took us about nine months just to make one brick." One brick wasn't enough, but that was no problem for a woman who likes to get her hands dirty. Next, she built a machine to mass produce the plastic bricks.
Materials scientist Nzambi Matee holds one of the bricks she's made of plastic from waste gathered at a landfill in Nairobi, Kenya. / Credit: CBS/Debora Patta
First the waste is sorted to remove rubble and metal, and then the plastic is baked — just like "making cookies," joked Matee — before the boiling mixture is molded into building blocks. Her setup can churn out as many as 2,000 per day, and they're 35% cheaper than standard bricks, and up to seven-times stronger.
Right now, Matee's bricks are only being used for pathways in small households, but she wants to target big construction companies. Kenya's fight against plastic pollution isn't just a homegrown issue. It's complicated by the fact that, two years ago, the U.S. exported more than one billion pounds of plastic waste to 96 nations, including Kenya.
Now Washington wants to make the shipment of more plastic waste a condition of a proposed trade deal. Greenpeace activist Amos Wemanya believes Kenya can barely manage its own waste, let alone recycle America's.
"It would be importing more problems if we were to allow this U.S.-Kenya trade deal to be used as a way of dumping plastic waste on the African continent," he told CBS News.
Matee agrees that countries should keep their waste in their own backyards, and she intends to make good on what she calls her triple threat: "The more we recycle the plastic, the more we produce affordable housing… the more we created more employment for the youth," she said.
Like many young Kenyans, Matee is passionate about saving the environment, but it's not just words. She's hoping that through her actions, the mountain in Dandora will become a mere hill.
Source: CBS News
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