The Flipflopi, a colourful and super cute boat made entirely out of recycled plastic (the first one in the world) was in Dar es Salaam last weekend and Njombe Beyond team could not miss the invitation to join the event. We took Deusto, our injection machine, some moulds and recycled products and headed to Dar es Salaam for a very productive and fun weekend.
The Flipflopi is a movement with the vision of ending single-use plastic and promoting the reuse of plastics through education, sailing expeditions, positive storytelling and campaigns. The symbol of this project is the Flipflopi; a boat made entirely out of recycled plastic and covered by 30,000 colourful flip-flops, one of the most abundant wastes found in Kenya’s beaches.
The boat was on a 4-week expedition in lake Victoria during March 2021 visiting different communities along the lake shore in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The aim of this expedition was to conduct events gathering business leaders, conservationists, policy-makers and school children, in order to highlight the impact of plastic pollution and other environmental challenges on the lake. The final event for the expedition was an exhibition in Dar es Salaam on 17th and 18th April gathering different actors fighting plastic pollution in Tanzania.
On Saturday morning, a clean-up was organized by Nipe Fagio at Kigamboni beach. Our team helped in conducting the WABA (Waste Audit and Brand Audit).
After that, an eco-market took place at Slipway, in Masaki, where the Flipflopi was docked. A constant flow of visitors came to our stand and learnt about our project. It was a good moment for networking with other environmental organizations, discussing partnerships with potential customers and doing some injection demonstrations with Deusto.
The exhibition continued on Sunday morning, when leaders of institutions dealing with the environment like UNDP and some government authorities met for a breakfast-discussion with the Flipflopi crew. After the meeting, they visited the stands and bought some items.
After the event, we recorded a video about Njombe Beyond for the documentary about the Flipflopi expedition and we had the chance to get on board the Flipflopi, learn about its story and touch the smooth flip-flops! It was very nice to meet Katharina, one of the crew members and designers of the boat, who is also a very active member of the core Precious Plastic group. We could share with her our challenges running the workshop, listen from her about other precious plastic workshops, see and touch recycled products from other workshops and plan for future activities together.
It was the first time that Njombe Beyond team attended an event like this and all the team concluded that it has been a great experience. Now the team is back in Njombe full of energy to continue working to #beatpollution and for the #plasticrevolution!
