To help the environment, Nzambi Matee utilized her innovative engineering skills to convert plastic waste into building materials.

Matee is a materials engineer and the founder of a factory called Gjenge Makers in Nairobi, where workers use a mix of different plastics to produce 1500 bricks a day. Since 2017, her factory has set out to resolve plastic pollution. 

After waiting for the government to take action, Matee created the factory’s machines to solve the problem. “I was tired of being on the sidelines,” she told Reuters.

The factory accepts waste that other facilities can’t recycle, which includes plastic originally used for milk and shampoo bottles, sandwich bags, buckets and ropes. “There is that waste they cannot process anymore; they cannot recycle. That is what we get,” she told the publication.

To make the brick, Matee takes the plastic waste, mix it with sand, and heats it up to make a brick that is five to seven times stronger than concrete. Since she founded Gjenge Makers, the factory has recycled 20 tons of plastic waste. Matee plans on expanding production that will produce more bricks for distribution. 

To find out more information about the process, check out the video below: