Tangled in seaweed, buried in sand, washed up in rock swimming pools – tattered outdated flip flops are an eyesore on Kenya’s seashores, flushed out of rivers or carried throughout the ocean from Asia and past.
They are the footwear of selection for a lot of the world however low cost flip flops, like different plastic trash, are polluting oceans and pristine white-sand seashores like Kilifi on the Indian Ocean.
“Rich, poor, everybody has got a pair,” mentioned Lillian Mulupi from Ocean Sole, a Kenyan enterprise that recycles discarded flip flops and different plastic rubbish discovered on seashores and waterways into vibrant sculptures and youngsters’s toys.
“Since they’re very easy to afford, when a pair is done you just throw it away and get a new one. So you get a lot of it ending up on our beaches.”
Volunteers amassing plastic waste throughout a cleansing train organised by Ocean Sole Africa, in Kilifi county on Feb 12, 2022. Flip flops are the footwear of selection for a lot of the world however low cost ones, like different plastic trash, are polluting oceans and pristine white-sand seashores like Kilifi on the Indian Ocean.
The rising scourge of marine litter will likely be entrance and centre when negotiations for a global plastics treaty start later this month at a UN surroundings assembly in the Kenyan capital.
Plastic has been discovered in the smallest of plankton and the biggest of whales, and strain is rising for a global settlement to deal with what has been referred to as an ecological disaster.
Governments are being urged to agree on a treaty framework in Nairobi to curb plastic air pollution “from source to sea” and to develop methods of reusing the plastic already in circulation.
Less than 10% of plastic is recycled, with most dumped in oceans and landfill.
From “the deepest ocean trench to the Arctic, you are finding plastics”, mentioned UN Environment Programme govt director Inger Andersen in an interview this week.
“You could weep.”
Trash to treasure
The disaster is plainly seen in Kilifi, the place huge volumes of plastic bottle caps, toothbrushes, sweet wrappers and flip flops had been collected in a single hour by volunteers throughout a latest seaside clean-up.
“We can collect as much as a tonne from a 2km (1.2-mile) stretch of beach,” mentioned Mulupi, who organises common clean-ups alongside the Kenyan coast involving about 150 volunteers.
One of them is Sally Adolwa, who finds rubbish from throughout the globe in the quiet dunes that fringe her native seaside.
“Trash has come from as far as India, the Philippines. Sometimes we are shocked,” she mentioned.
Beneath a tree, sacks bulging with refuse are sorted into classes, with onerous plastics and PET bottles put apart to be bought to recyclers.
The flip flops – largely low cost, trendy varieties made of froth and different plastic supplies that mimic rubber – are bought by Ocean Sole, permitting collectors to earn a little additional money to help their households.
They are despatched to a workshop in Nairobi, totally cleaned, and glued collectively into multi-coloured slabs.
Casual labourers washing used and worn-out flip flops on the Ocean Sole Africa workshop in Nairobi.
Dozens of artisans – largely former woodworkers – skilfully carve them into miniature turtles and whales, customized wall hangings and animal sculptures large and small on the market, largely overseas.
Off cuts and tougher plastic unsuitable for sculpting are shredded into filler for mattresses, cushions and canine beds.
Plastic insulating Styrofoam salvaged from dumped fridges is used as a mould for bigger works, together with elephants and towering giraffes that may promote for a lot of a whole bunch of {dollars}.
“Even we can do masterpieces that take about 2,000 flip flops,” mentioned manufacturing supervisor Jonathan Lenato.
A drop in the ocean
Flip flops aren’t simply sourced from the ocean however rivers and canals in the slums of Nairobi, one in every of Africa’s fastest-growing cities with a main landfill drawback.
“We receive, weekly, about 1.2 tonnes. Turn this into a month, then a year… It’s a lot of flip flops,” mentioned Lenato.
All in all, Ocean Sole says it recycles between 750,000 and a million flip flops a 12 months, and has created round 100 full-time jobs.
But they are working towards the tide: some estimates counsel between 19 and 23 million tonnes of plastic enter the world’s waterways yearly, a determine anticipated to sharply rise in coming many years with out motion.
The scale of the disaster just isn’t misplaced on Lenato – by no means as soon as in 16 years has he run in need of uncooked supplies to satisfy orders.
“We have to do something about our environment. We are encouraging people all over the world to do their part also,” he mentioned.
“We need to do recycling with our trash the best (we) can.” – AFP
