A Kenyan youth is among seven winners of the 2020 UN Young Champions of the Earth Award. 29-year-old Nzambi Matee, Unep’s Young Champion of the Earth for Africa, Nzambi Matee resolved at a young age to be part of the solution to the plastic pollution menace that had defaced the natural beauty associated with the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Matee’s plastic recycling innovation created new revenue sources for urban youth, earned her the prestigious award which incorporates funding and mentorship to spur growth of green start-ups. The award is the UN’s highest environmental honour, given to young people whose actions are transforming the environment. She is the only one from Africa, among the seven global environmentalists, feted for their conservation efforts.
Matee is head of Gjenge Makers, a company that produces sustainable low-cost construction materials from recycled plastic waste and sand. She started her work in 2017 after getting heartbroken every time she visited the Coast and saw numerous plastic bottles abandoned along the shores. She decided to take up recycling, and put the bottles to good use.
Recycling plastic
Matee defied disapproving neighbors to operate an old and noisy machine and create plastic paving blocks that have now gained traction in Kenya’s construction industry. Her company is based in Nairobi’s Industrial Area and her motivation, she said, is seeing plastic that had been discarded carelessly becoming alternative and cheaper building materials. The company has so far recycled more than 20 tonnes of plastic waste. They are planning to acquire more machines to expand their production.
“I am elated. Very excited. I am lost for words .Plastic is a material that is misused and misunderstood. The potential is enormous, but its afterlife can be disastrous,” said Matee.
Unep’s Executive Director Inger Andersen said the young champions have demonstrated that everyone can contribute towards environmental conservation, and every single act for nature counts.
Solution to pollution
“Globally, young people are leading the way in calling for meaningful and immediate solutions to the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – we must listen,” said Anderson.
Experts said that young people should be at the heart of the search for a durable solution to pollution created by end of life industrial products like plastics.
“We must rethink how we manufacture industrial products and deal with them at the end of their useful life. Nzambi Matee’s innovation in the construction sector highlights the economic and environmental opportunities when we move from a linear economy, where products, once used, are discarded, to a circular one, where products and materials continue in the system for as long as possible,” said Soraya Smaoun, industrial production specialist with the UN Environment Programme.
