Flipflopi?
Flipflop is what flip flops are called in English, and that is what our organization and our treasure are called.
Your colorful boat?
We are a group of volunteers, each with their own background. One of the partners, Ben Morison, and I each own a travel agency; Ali Skanda is a well-known builder and carpenter, and we came together with the idea of building a boat, a plastic dhow.
A traditional boat?
Yes, it is well known throughout the Indian Ocean, it has been sailing through its waters for the last 700 years, connecting East Africa and reaching China.
The first of its kind in plastic?
Yes, the first sailboat made of 100% recycled plastic, nine meters long, built with remains of bottles, buckets, shovels, toothbrushes and thousands of flip flops, and using traditional techniques for the manufacture of this type of boat.
What sense does it have?
We must recycle, our wonderful white sand beaches in Kenya are full of plastic, but we did not want to be doomsayers, so we decided to create something positive, that was part of our culture and that allowed us to attract attention.
They have achieved it.
We have shown that it can be done with very little means, in an environment with very little technology, an archipelago of islands, Lamu, with 70% mangrove ecosystems and where we know little about plastic management.
And there it is.
Everyone thought we were crazy, but within two years the dhow was built, covered in 30,000 colorful flip-flops. It attracted a lot of media attention and the United Nations, in its environmental program, supported our first expedition.
Where did they go?
From Lamu to Zanzibar, organizing a lot of activities wherever we passed. The current was strong, we had many waves, another dhow was sailing next to us, but ours sailed better!
Tell me.
We have made three important expeditions, after going to Zanzibar, the Flipflopi was at the UN headquarters in Nairobi during the Environment Assembly where an anti-plastics treaty was agreed in 2019. The next trip was to Lake Victoria.
But it is surrounded by land!
Yes, but it connects Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. Lake Victoria is heavily polluted and 40 million people depend on it. We work with scientists, artists and musicians.
What did they organize?
We circled the entire lake, a month of crossing, and took the opportunity to do a study on microplastics. We did analyzes from the surface to the deepest waters and found the presence of plastics everywhere, including unpopulated areas.
A shame.
We don't give up. We have created a plastic recovery center, we buy tons of plastics from low-income communities and we have a factory where we make parts for boats, traditional furniture and teach training courses.
What do they form?
We try to preserve the heritage of Lamu Island by teaching traditional crafts: doors, chairs, benches, tables..., but, instead of wood, made with plastic.
It's a shame that wooden crafts are now plastic.
What is a shame is the indiscriminate exploitation of forests and the invasion of plastic throughout the world. Our contribution is to maximize the local economy by generating jobs and protecting our legacy within our archipelago.
Everything stays at home.
Africa's population is growing exponentially and we are wondering how to prevent the plastic crisis that we see in Southeast Asia from coming, what we can do here and now to have the necessary infrastructure to avoid such a crisis.
What will be your next challenge?
We have built other traditional plastic boats for Lamu fishermen as an alternative to fiberglass, which is a very unsustainable material.
Is it a viable model?
Absolutely, we have also built a small model that is used as a taxi in the archipelago and it works very well, it is finding a place in the local boat industry.
And does the Flipflopi dhow sail well?
Excellent, we dream of building a 25 meter long Flipflopi to go around the world, the largest object ever built from recycled plastic.
