 Every pole we use, you know fencing mainly people use wood and poles. We king in the Zambu, whatever kind of pole. If we are able to give you a substitute and you can use nails the same way as wood. The same way as wood on our plastic poles, then we think we are changing that conversation into saving more trees that more people accept our poles. So you are not only cleaning the environment by reducing the amount of plastic in the environment, but you're also saving on the trees in the environment so a better place for everyone to live in. We think of ourselves as playing the climate change conversation which is a big deal. We really should be concerned about where our world is headed especially with global warming and part of that is because of the trash we throw out and part of it is because of the trees we cut down. Those are two huge contributions to global warming and climate change and fortunately for us we are able to tackle both with what we do. Exactly. To tell us the benefits of this, for someone who's just thinking, you see, I mean it's not a big deal, it's plastic. So what are the effects of plastic to the environment and what's the impact of having trees in the society? What is the benefit? I'll start with plastic and plastic as I mentioned is a manas. Plastic is meant to last. We use plastic for almost everything. It's hygienic so it's a very easy product to use but the more we use it those good qualities then come to bite us because the more it lasts in the environment the worse it is for us. So it's clogging up our rivers, it's clogging up our drains, it's going into the sea levels. In fact plastic has been found in the deepest part of the ocean, about 11 kilometers down. So that's the effect that plastic has, it's clogging our nature and it breaks down very slowly but even when it breaks down it breaks down into microplastics which are still plastics and harmful and for the first time this year some scientists actually found microplastics in our blood. So that's the effect that plastic is having on us. So we are consuming it back. We are consuming because for example the plastic that goes into the oceans it breaks down and then the fish eats, then we eat the fish. So it's coming back to us. And that takes us abated by having less trees, cutting down trees. It's something that we can all see is like the rains in Kenya. The rains are not raining as it's been raining. The cold season is weird and we're still in July. The plastic has changed yet. Those are the actual visible tangible effects of climate change and that's the kind of challenge we are taking on. Okay. And why did you decide to venture into this? Is it a passion that you have for the environment or was it just business? This is business because you're making money out of it in the long run. Both. And why can't it be both, right? And the good thing is when they say that when you do what you love you never work in your life. So I do have a passion for the environment. I really care about the world that we live for our children. I really care that in 2050 plastic will account for 15% of climate change. These are huge challenges that someone has to take up right now and if then we were to get monetary benefit from that it's a win-win situation, right? Yeah, you're saving the environment and of course saving your pocket at the same time. Exactly. So you see yourself as an environmentalist and a businessman. Yes. So how did you, how did you start and when did you start? Started in 2019 coming from a background of marketing. I'm a digital marketing strategist. Was, am, right? And then the tangent just came from moving from wanting to do something that has more purpose. You're hitting your 30s and you're like am I doing what I want to be doing with my life, right? Am I really making an impact in the world? Am I leaving the world a better place than I found it? And that is what led me to this, asking, talking to people and that's how I actually met my business partner who is a very well-versed, he's an engineer and he does the operational bit of it and we teamed up and that was in 2019. We bought our first machine and its second hand machine so it had a lot of work to be done. Then finally we got into proper operations and production last year, that's in January. So we've been running since and looking forward to what's ahead. Okay. I'm getting that your background is not even related to what you do digital marketing and now, you know, the operations and the work involved, they are not related. So it is totally, completely passion. Yes, yes. It was a complete tangent from what I used to do from telling people buy this, buy that to more or use less plastic. Let us recycle more. Let us be, let us look at what we are consuming, right? Let us be aware of what we are consuming in terms of our buying because that we are living it in the world. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Yes, it was quite a tangent. And how was it now getting into it? Was it easy, was it hard before people, before the business started to pick? It's still business. Business at the end of the day has its highs and lows. I don't expect that to change because we are going for bigger challenges so we expect even more challenges. But getting especially into waste management has a lot of regulation. You will also find that the machinery that we use is not cheap. So that's why we even started with the second hand machine and having a lot of the work done in-house as opposed to buying a final product. So they are the challenges of regulation. They are challenges of financing. But when your passion kind of overcomes that then you have that motivation to wake up in the morning. We've had some really dark days. We had days when we couldn't operate, we couldn't turn on the machines just because of lack of resources. Manufacturing is quite expensive just to run. You're not selling but just to run. It's quite expensive. So those are the challenges that we have. Thankfully we are getting accepted more and more in the market because that was another challenge. What's a plastic pole? Does it work the same way? It's strong. And those are challenges that we are still overcoming. The more people know about it and want to go to the factory to buy a new one. We want to buy a new one. Then for example where we have the factory we had a fence that's made with wood and a fence that's made with our poles that the wooden one actually fell down after one and a half years. Ours is still standing. We expect the poles to last for 40 plus years. So those are the challenges that the education, the finances and also the regulations but we've overcome most of those. The market is responding quite well and we are really excited for the future. Amazing. So tell us about the process for someone who doesn't understand how is plastic waste done to the poles or you know furniture as you said and we have some pictures that we'll be showing you how they've been able to transform the plastic into furniture and into the fencing poles. Take us through the process. So we don't do the collection ourselves so we've partnered with groups that do collection for us in Dandora, Babadogo and those other places. We mostly get our waste from Nairobi and the landfills and other larger waste plastic manufacturers who have now their waste. Then they take the plastic waste and wash it for us and then shred it for us because our machine accepts shredded plastic so that's how they form it comes to us. Once it's shredded it comes to us we dry it in the sun because of the washing it has some moisture content then it goes into our machine the main machine that we use is an extruder so this is just a barrel with a screw inside that has heaters on top the heaters heat the barrel which heat the plastic so the goal is to make the plastic malleable molten kind of kamaungayangano then we are able to work with it once we get the plastic to that consistency we are able to mold it into molds of the poles that we want to produce and you can see an image here so tell us about this this is our raking process this is actually a pole from end to end these are the racks so after it comes from the extruder it comes within the mold this is now out of the mold so we have to put it into a cooling bath and then extract the pole we have to put it then in this metal cage that holds the pole quite tightly so that when it's cooling it doesn't lose its shape so that's what you see going on here so now what happens after this? after this then it cools totally then it's good now it's a pole for say it's done these are the final product okay and we have images of the finished product we can have that our director that's a furniture that's a fence that we made for some of our clients who has horse tables somewhere in Karen so she wanted to redo her whole fence you can see the fence in the back what she had and then what we are replacing it with okay the photos can keep coming same project now this this is the furniture we were talking about okay so we can have this in your house it's actually outdoor furniture in fact we can partner with county governments to give them outdoor furniture schools, national parks because our products are not affected by weather it's not affected it doesn't rot so it won't be consumed by termites you can paint on it because the painter here is very well this fencing we did in Tigoni for one of our clients and as you can see we used normal barbed wire we used normal chain link normal nails so there is no technicality to using that so the difference is just that you are saving this is plastic and the other one is wood and this is much better because we are saving on trees and you've also said that this is more long lasting and you expect it to have durability of 40 years 40 plus years because plastic lasts for 400 plus years so we are even lowballing it when we say 40 years it's a great substitute for wood because it won't rot na akunam tu atakuji kwa iti you fenced in some place you went to speculate and you don't go to look at it so you can be sure that the poles won't be stolen to be used as firewood in that land sorry paciana pia kandisa it is also in your website you also say it's tamit proof and you're of course not prone to theft in comparison with the other type and very durable so tamit proof of course because it's not wood na akunam tu atakuji kwa and that's the thing because once you use a wood and pole after two years then another one and every pole you put up is a tree so it's really dangerous to actually go down that route if you care about the environment if you want more trees in the environment apart from the furniture and the poles are you making another product out of the plastics yeah it's in the works we are actually looking at the great thing with plastic it's malleable it's molten so we are looking into ways of making it into cabro that's paving blocks we are looking into building blocks that are interlocking hence they will use less cement less mortar to join them we are also looking into roofing tiles that are UV treated and cheaper and actually lighter than the matofali and they will be lighter and more durable since they don't crack so these are products that we have in the pipeline now it's just a matter of time and financing to get there and is it a specific type of plastic that you use that is better than another or how do you for our products we use almost all kinds of waste plastic apart from plastics with high chlorine content PVC that you use for the wiring because that's not good for even our guys at the factory toki choma the fumes are quite dangerous so apart from PVC we use almost every other type of plastic and I was watching another documentary especially for the how do you call them the building the cabros so they say that somehow this plastic they cheap off they find a way back to the environment and it's still very dangerous what do you say about that those are challenges that we will face and those are the challenges that we won't take up of course and you see like in India they use plastic to make roads but with that friction with the tire and with feet they will cheap off the micro plastics we are talking about so it's upon us that as of this how do we then make our products better and safer for generations to come it's a going concern it's something that we are concerned about it's something that we are addressing but it needs better collaboration between us as producers and people that have more knowledge in the area more collaborative processes to see how we can mitigate such whereas it stands it has more benefits then I do think it does have more benefits I want to believe so because at the moment we do about 30 tons of plastic per month at our factory we have the capability to do much much more and this is plastic that will have ended up in the environment either way so if it's converted to a pool it's better than lying in a landfill somewhere and would you say this is cheaper this is cheaper now for for the consumer to buy the plastic poles or the plastic furniture in comparison to buying the wooden price is relative because you'll find that it's cheaper it's cheaper than metal it's cheaper than concrete poles but it's at par with treated poles but more expensive than normal poles, non-treated poles it has a bigger bigger margin on it than the treated poles but then again you look at the lifetime value of the product so even if you buy the product for two third of the the wooden pole for two third of my price then it lasts for two years you have to replace the whole fence so over time you'll spend more by not using my poles okay amazing what's your vision for the future for your company and for Kenya in regards to managing the plastic waste and what do you think we need to do more in this area okay yeah so a good thing is that actually just two months ago was it in July the president signed into law the sustainable waste management act of 2021 which means that everybody now has a responsibility of segregating their waste right from your household right everyone you have to separate you have to separate your waste two years it will be enacted and that's a great step in the right direction because then we will have a better chance to get all the plastic before it gets into the landfills and the government actually stipulates that we should be working with county governments who will now lay out procedures of how then to deal with this segregated waste where are the collection points the great thing is that the mechanisms are there the law is there so what we need to do is follow and execute the letter of the law alright and what's your vision for your company brilliant so for us we envision a world free of plastic waste not free of plastics but plastic waste where we reduce what we use and that's in terms of straws in terms of forks these things we can do without especially single use then we recycle what we can your bottles make them into gardens flower pots that kind of thing and what we can't is recycle that's what comes to us we want to produce as many products as possible in the construction space that will enable us to capture as much plastic from the environment as possible that's the goal finally as we come to a close on this conversation talk to us from someone in the perspective of managing the plastic waste from your home as you said we need to segregate it remind us about reuse and recycle recycle yes it's a circular economy so we need the world produces about a million tons every year of plastic a lot of this is plastic that we don't need packaging excessive packaging uses that the plastic straws we can reduce that we can say as consumers we don't want products that are wrapped in so much plastic so that's the reduction part we just are against taking in plastic and that goes all the way up back to the producer and that's something else the law covers in extended producer responsibility where anyone putting in plastic market is responsible for its life cycle up to its recycling so that's the reduction let's use less we generally just need less then if we can't reuse we use it for something else don't throw it out because it will land in a landfill or it will go to a river or it will go to a drainage just find ways around your house with your kids whatever just find ways to reuse the things that you have then recycle that's where we come in if you have to throw it out then throw it out responsibly and then we'll pick it up and I hope we partner with counties and these other guys tasked with that to get as much of that plastic and then it's up to us to recycle currently we are making the polls we can get into a lot more material with the right kind of support and partnerships so you're looking for the right support and partnership so where can they get you in case they have this and your final word to youth watching who has to someone wants to venture into this but doesn't have the resources or doesn't believe in themselves enough so maybe you have a word for them and of course your social handles so you can reach us on Facebook, Instagram Twitter, Noma Green Plastics or our website nomagreenplastics.co.ke for anyone who really wants to venture into this it's required we need more people we really need more people tackling this we need more people really passionate about waste the reward might come or might not come you can't promise anyone anything but if you're passionate about it the breakthrough will be there look at all the conversations going around climate change and what we can do with sustainable waste and there are so many opportunities for youth it's not just what we do in manufacturing but in collection in education there are so many opportunities in waste and dealing with waste that I would really encourage anyone to come into the industry thank you very much and for helping us save the planet making it a better place to live my pleasure thank you so much for your time so that has been Mugwa Masharia the founder of Noma Green Plastics you can reach him and if you want to get into saving the planet then he says you can get into this space there's many opportunities and you are needed of course this has been a sport on tech but we are not done yet Val will be coming with some more entertainment we have more artists coming your way so don't go anywhere the hashtag is still fast devives this is 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