Precious Plastics Kisii & In2Afrika

The In2Afrika Foundation takes it as a mission to provide customized support to its selected, small-scale development projects across the African continent. Solid Waste is a project aiming at expanding the work of In2Africa’s partner Precious plastics Kisii. This is a plastic recycling workspace in Kenya that was created as a solution to two critical problems in the area: plastic pollution and youth unemployment.

The amount of plastics waste that is produced in Kenya is constantly growing. People are concerned with the negative impacts it has on the environment and on human health, and are starting to take action. 

Precious plastics Kisii is a plastic recycling workspace that was founded in 2017 as a collaboration between Precious Plastics (Netherlands), UN Habitat and the local Kisii government. The five machines that are in the workspace were built with locally sourced materials and are used by the local people in a process of collection, cleaning, shredding and turning the plastic waste into a durable recycled object. However, there are certain challenges that the project is facing. The workspace is counting on volunteers only, it is not economically sustainable and therefore it is reaching a small number of people. 

A motivated team from Kisii has come up with a solution: creating a mobile workspace that can travel around schools and other institutions in order to reach more people and to inspire a change in the way plastic is used and disposed of. The students’ role was to help develop this project idea by evaluating its feasibility, conducting interviews, building a strong network and exploring other ways of further development of the workspace.