What to do with those used water bottles?

   When we were in Kenya last month, we spent two nights at our friend Izzo’s safari camp. It is a work in progress, progress that was brought to a stand-still during COVID and which is just now starting to ramp up again.

You looked at this picture and probably thought, “what in the world is that all about?”

It’s basically Izzo being his usual ingenious self. These used water bottles, filled with sand, are solving not one, not two, but three problems.

First, there is a huge garbage problem in Kenya. People all over the country have been prone to throwing their trash out wherever they are. Some Kenyans are starting to do more recycling, even finding all sorts of creative ways to reuse their debris. Also, a few years ago, Kenya outlawed the use of plastic bags, which really cut down on that sort of blight on the landscape.

They are working to make plastic bottles illegal as well and have banned them in national parks, conservation areas, and other places. Unfortunately, out on the edge of the Masa Mara Game Park, there seems to be no limit on the number of discarded bottles.

So, Izzo has asked the women of the area to collect as many bottles as they can, fill them with sand, and bring them to his camp. Not only is this helping with the problem of pollution, Izzo is paying the women for the number of bottles they bring him. This helps with a second problem – supplying the local Maasai with an income.

The third problem is getting building materials out to the Mara.

Ta-da! Build with those sand-filled bottles. The day we were there, we watched two young women bring bag after bag of bottles to add to their pile. Every trip, they offered us their most beautiful smiles.

And after all their hard work and the hard work of a small construction crew . . .

This is the unique, sturdy villa you end up with. 

Click on this link for more on what Kenya is doing to help the environment:  https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/kenya-emerges-leader-fight-against-plastic-pollution#:~:text=And%2C%20as%20of%20June%202020,or%20straws%20into%20protected%20areas.

 

This article was in one of the Kenyan papers while we were there. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original article on the paper's website, so I couldn't post that link.