“Il riciclaggio come pratica per la sostenibilità sociale. I mattoni in plastica riciclata di Gjenge Makers in Kenya

The world production of plastics has been in continuous growth since the 1950s; the production today amounts to over 322 million tons per year. Currently this material is among the most commercialized in the world. Parallel to the production the recycling process manifests critical issues due to the complexity in the diff erentiation of the components of the marketed products. The problem of plastic waste is tackled diff erently in the various countries, trying as much as possible to implement a virtuous recycling process. In some cases, such as for the European continent, this recycling process has begun to give its results by managing to recycle a large part of these materials to use them as secondary raw materials, but not all over the world the condition is the same. In some countries, such as Africa, the problem of recycling plastics is a critical issue especially concerning a particular type of product: single- use plastics. In particular, Kenya is a country with great problems in disposing of these products, so much so that, in 2017, it banned its production and marketing. In response to this great environmental emergency, in 2018 Nzambi Matee, founded her laboratory aimed at recycling plastic waste to building materials. In almost three years and with the improvement of the production process today, this laboratory is a consolidated reality, which produces from 1.000 to 1.500 bricks/day in recycled material and has managed to recycle over 20 tons of plastic waste since its birth.