Edward Norton Introduces Nzambi Matee

I'm Edward Norton, and this is No Denying It, the UN Climate Action Podcast. There's a public park in the middle of the city of Nairobi in Kenya. It's called Uhoru Park, and it's got a lake, rolling green lawns, monuments, even a skate park. For a long time, it was the only green space that people could publicly access, but in the 1980s, the government wanted to develop a part of the park into a giant office complex. That didn't happen, though. A movement to save the park sprung up, catalyzed by professor and environmental activist Wangari Muthai. Wangari Muthai campaigned to preserve public forest land. She created the green belt movement. So as usual, we decided that we would go on a tree planting mission, which organized women to plant tens of millions of trees in Kenya and other nations. It wasn't always easy. There was opposition to her work. Sometimes she was physically attacked by police or private security forces, but she would go on to be the first African woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize for her contributions to sustainable development and democracy. I call upon Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2004, Wangari Muthai Muthai. She would also inspire generations of future activists and doers, including. In Zambi. In Zambi Muthai and I am 29 years old. I run a company where we manufacture alternative building products located here in Nairobi where I live. In Zambi was just a kid when Muthai started building her movement. And I remember I was still young. I don't know exactly, but anything between seven to about 11 years. But I remember she was beaten and she had like blood flowing through her head or something. But rather than deterring in Zambi, the images she saw impressed her. I could see the passion in her eyes like she was saying no, like this is an individual saying no to the government in taking a green space. I was like, "Oh, that's some ninja stuff there." So I was like, "I was like this park." And Zambi never got to meet Muthai. But she thinks of her as an environmental role model. When I grow up, I. Because I have a lot of green to do. While in Zambi may not be leading protesters in the streets like her hero, she has developed a way to make those streets greener by turning plastic waste into material to build homes. "I want to make up the product." Extracting new materials out of the ground, like the oil used to make plastics, uses a lot of energy. Those materials get transformed into objects which takes more energy and then shipped around the world, mostly powered by fossil fuels. But there's an alternative by creating a circular economy in which we collect and reuse material. We can start to reduce the amount of waste and carbon emissions that damage our environment. "I believe everyone is putting this world for a purpose. And my purpose was always to create a dent in the universe by impacting the environment space. That is my purpose." Here's our conversation with Enzambi Muthai. She spoke with our producer, Rachel Ward. "Plastic is a material and this is just my belief as a person and a scientist. It's a misunderstood and misused material. Its impact has been immense and tremendous because there's a touch of plastic in almost all industries. But the problem and the challenge we have not thought of is once we use it then what happens to eat. The plastic that already exists in the ocean, scientists say it's about almost a size of Texas, if not two times Texas. So there's already that which exists that we need to take it out in one form or the other. How did you come up with this product? What was the inspiration for it? It actually started with me and my friends starting to collect plastic waste around our estates and neighborhood. It was a challenge we developed as a result of a hackathon, waste management hackathon. And so we started collecting plastic waste from our neighborhood, sorting them and selling to recyclers. But then we realized we were collecting more plastic than the recyclers could get. So we, at the end of the day, we found that we had a lot of plastic still left within our storage area. So that made me think, well, so what more can we do with the remaining plastic? So I went to the internet, the concept of using plastic waste in the building or other construction space is not new. The traditional forms they use grass and extra grasses. For example, here in Kenya, we have the Masai who make their houses, which are called manatas using a mixture of mud and grass straws. So the concept is the same. The only difference is instead of using grass straws here, we use plastic waste. So you took a local idea and mixed it with the materials that you had started collecting during the hackathon and came up with a new product. Exactly. The product line are pevers, which are used in sidewalk paths, garages, those stones that you see on sidewalks. So we make that, but using recycled with plastic and sand. Where does the plastic that you guys are using come from? So where we are plugging ourselves in is once they collect in areas where the collection is structured, the plastic goes to recyclers, ideally speaking. And so what the recyclers do is they crush a plastic and they politicize it so that that pallette can go back to the factories so that it can make another packaging products. That's the first line. The output of that, which is what we call as the waste of the waste, they cannot recycle anymore because the plastic has lost its integrity. So we get that plastic. The other plastic we get is the one which, after the factory has processed, there's that waste they cannot recycle anymore. And then there's the waste that the waste because collect from the environment, we get that. So we're really making this system of plastic waste look really efficient. You're doing that hardest part of taking the waste that is the waste of the waste. Exactly. The idea is to use one challenge of plastic pollution to solve another problem of affordable housing. If you get that street spot, I think we'd have fulfilled our purpose. Tell me a little bit about how you see the process going from where you guys are now, which is making the plastic pavers to the point where you're able to make building supplies that help with the housing issue. So I think the immediate step is finishing the R&D research and development so that we can develop the actual building blocks because when the reason we started with pavers is it's an easy entry to the market. And especially in the construction space, which is a very conservative slash rigid sector. After we do the research and development, and I've gone through the testing and the accreditation will now move into trying to see which is the entry point where we solve an actual problem for the bull housing and it keeps on going, creating jobs because the reason the reason why I also moved from just a service where we were collecting plastic sorting and crushing and selling to recyclers into actually using the plastic was from research, the biggest sector which can create a lot of employment, especially youth employment is the manufacturing sector. And as you know youth and employment in Kenya and in Africa is a huge problem speaking from experience. So that is another way as to why I wanted to go into one factory. What's the reception been like to the ideas that you're bringing? So the reception has been awesome, our challenge is not demand, it's apply especially as fast production capacity is constant. What are the challenges there with capacity? When you have one production line and reproduce a maximum of about 1,000 to 1,500 pversa day, that's enough for a household project but we're getting like right now we have about two, three interested companies and they ask you for huge amounts. So we need to ramp up our production to even just do one. That's really exciting. Yeah. How does that feel? It feels like a huge responsibility but then it also it's very exciting because then I get to have more team because the last quarter of 2020 we were about 10 and now we're in the second quarter of 2021 and we're 20, a team of 20. So in like almost two quarters we doubled so if we can extrapolate the rate by the end of this year we'll have, if not triple quadrupled and then the other one is we got a lot of calls from different recyclers. So when we started we only had like one company we were working with and now we have about seven companies that we have onboarded and we collect the plastics waste from them on a monthly basis. So I think the growth has been immensely rapid. Is this an idea that you hope to like maybe license internationally and have a much bigger international footprint? Yes. So in fact we're trying to because we've gotten calls from almost about 30 countries in Africa representatives from 30 different countries in Africa wanting to replicate the solution and like Southeast Asia and South America. So what you want to do is want to establish a structure and a system where we can get both the machines and the structure and the technology to have the system like plug and play. All you have to do is just understand the life cycle and the life stream of life. plastic in your country or in your town. And then we give you this solution, you just plug in into that and you're good to go. So that everyone can solve their own plastic problems in their own local. Who do you think might be the first community or country to implement it outside of Kenya? I think I'll start with the neighbours, the immediate neighbours in East Africa. Yeah, that makes sense. You can actually go over and do trainings and support. Yeah, because it's also easy in terms of logistics and all that stuff. And it's also a good, it to be an easy, for example, like for Tanzania, it to be easy because we understand the structure is almost the same, the culture is almost the same, the language is the same. So it will not be far from what you're used to in Nairobi, of course, there will be differences, but it will be a good way to prototype. Polling plastics out of the out of the waste stream is a way of reducing negative effects of plastic in the ecosystem when the plastic is break down. It also makes the environment cleaner and it's it's better for animals and water. But I'm wondering if you think about the sort of front end of that of plastic production. Do you think about the way that the work you're doing is reducing the demand for plastic and thus contributing to leaving fossil fuels in the ground rather than extracting them? Finding alternative to plastic bioplastics, that will be a true alternative in the long term, if you can figure out bioplastics that can replace the plastic in the different sectors. So the sources will vary, so it's not like one thing. The only difference is whichever source it comes, it just has to be able to degrade faster and also degrade in a form that it will not alter the ecosystem within the area where it degrades. How we do that research and development? Do you see yourself ever going into lab-based research or do you think that your career trajectory is going to be in this entrepreneurial, engineering, real-world problem-solving space? I think I'll be in the middle because based on what I see, there's some really good research and development happening within the academia space. But then there's a lot of disconnect between the transition of that research from just the labs into the real world to be like an everyday solution because it's one thing being a scientist and building a solution, it's another thing mass-producing that solution to a level where it's sustainable. And so where I see myself is attracted in the middle. I'm curious since you are sort of achieving that balance, if there's any particular strategy or advice that you have for people to make that connection and make that bridge between pure academic work and work in the field. To make solutions simple and practical because that's our goal, we want to make solutions that impact the affordable housing space that are simple and practical and especially in the context in Africa because if I come with a concept of bioplastics in this fancy structure in the academia space, it will remain just that, a research. But if I can bring it into the level where the bioplastics move from the research and to the and labs into our kitchens, like instead of me having a plastic plate to use in the microwave, I have maybe a bioplate that can do the same. Just thinking out loud, but the point is to make it applicable in everyday life. You've talked about part of the thinking behind starting the businesses, not waiting for someone else to solve a problem, like seeing a problem and deciding to just act on it. What advice would you have for people who want to do the same thing who might be listening to this show? I think the first one is to understand your why, as I always say, be true to your why, why do you want to do this and then move on to the what? Because the challenges to be tackled within just the climate change segment are enormous. There are so many if not a touch of almost all sectors. And so the first one is just understand your why, know your why. And then the next one is just that. Because the challenge speaking from experience is it's in the beginning when you're starting to develop a solution, you have both the fear of their known and lack of information and history. To guide you also, you're developing that and so once you get over that, then there is falls in place. You will figure it out later. Like in zombie says, plastic is a powerful material that's woven into every aspect of our lives. But because we've produced so much of it, we need to find lots of ambitious and creative ways to reclaim it and other materials. So don't just think about recycling when you're taking out your bin. Think about recycling when you're shopping. Seek out products made from reused materials. Materials that are easier to recycle where you live. Or buy things in packaging that you're excited to reuse. When you let your local government know that you want them to invest in recycling infrastructure, you help other people recycle more effectively. And you can demand that companies be held accountable for what happens to their products through their entire life cycle, including when the product is finished. Because nobody can make change this big alone. But we can all help shape the system to get us there. There's no denying it. No denying it. The UN Climate Action Podcast is produced by UN News and good to do today. Our producer at UN News is Connor Lennon, and Natalie Hutchison is our promo and distribution manager. Our producer is a good to do today, our Emma Jacobs, Jay Venables, and Rachel Ward. Our managing producer at UN News is Matthew Wells, and our executive producer is Mita Hosali. Braden Alexander is our audio engineer, and our theme song is by Memory Palace, courtesy of Marma Set. This episode features archival audio from nation media group, the independent lens episode taking root of the Green Belt movement, and from the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Award ceremony. Many, many thanks to Carlos Islam, Florian Fustetter, Francis Mead, Hollywood Bustamanti, Fang Chen, Martina Donlin, British The Jane, Robert Nishovsky, June Park, Ezra Sergi, Sam Tracy, Matilda Felino, Freesson.org, and the UN Environment Program. You can find more stories about climate action from UN News at news. UN.org. [Music]