ECOACT TANZANIA

Plastic waste is a global issue, The carbon footprint of plastic (LDPE or PET, polyethylene) is about 6 kg CO2 per kg of plastic and every year more than 9 million tones of plastic garbage ends up into our oceans causing ocean pollution and threat to marine life, and by the year 2050 there could be more plastics than fish In the ocean, Plastic pollution hurts both marine species and human being because as plastic debris floats in the seawater absorbs dangerous pollutants which are highly toxic and have a wide range of chronic effects, including endocrine disruption and cancer-causing mutations. 

Another problem is deforestation, a 2018 report by the United Nations Environmental Program estimated that Earth's total forest area continues to decrease at about 13 million hectares per year. But we realized that if we could use plastic waste and packaging materials to produce a sustainable alternative product to wood timber that is used for building and construction to bring affordable building materials, we could profit from the profitable timber market while saving forests and preventing plastic garbage ending into oceans. 

We have developed a chemical free, energy conserving plastic extrusion technology called “Waxy ӀӀ technology” to recycle and transform plastic garbage into durable and long lasting plastic timbers, Plastic timbers are affordable alternative to wood timbers, hence reduces the need for building material manufactured from wood, helping to preserve forests, cut down on deforestation and further mitigation of climate change. The plastic timbers which are ideal product for building, construction and furniture making are normally made in 10ft on average and shaped either round or square. Our technology is environmental friendly, using natural bio products in the plastic extrusion process helping plastic materials of different polymers reach their melting point quickly while retaining their original stability and strength, hence low energy consumption resulting to low production costs. We are simply the pioneer of chemical free and energy conserving plastic extrusion technology in Africa. 

Our technology and products addresses the challenge of Slum proliferation by providing affordable building material to developers, building with our products from recycled waste plastics saves the building costs by 32%. 

While pursuing this goal to protect ocean, the environment and ensure affordable building materials, we launched a "Garbage Medical Insurance"  this is a micro health insurance program which uses plastic waste as financial resources. Poor slum folks pays clinic service using plastic garbage. This way the community mobilizes their own resources to improve health access and breakdown barrier between health facilities and community. With Garbage Medical insurance, while improving healthcare access and sanitation, we aim to reduce high child mortality rate in slums by 35% and reduce by 65% deaths among expectant women caused by home-based deliveries and post-natal bleeding.  

Mr. Bernard Ernest, Technical Director who oversees all production, holds Master of Engineering degree in Biochemical.

Mr. Christian Mwijage, Managing Director who oversees operations, holds a bachelor degree in Business Administration and Marketing. 

Madam, Elineca Ndowo, Chief Finance Officer holds a Masters Degree in Project management and financing from the University of Daressalaam.

Mr. Baraka Zakaria is our Chief Strategist Officer. He holds a business degree from the University of Sheffield and brings his deep industry knowledge and great connections. He is involved in making key strategic plans for the organization and marketing

 Mrs. Mariam Lameck, EcoAct Tanzania Advisor holds a Finance degree & a Masters of Business Administration from the United States International University. She carries out internal Auditing & Financial Analysis for EcoAct Tanzania

While reviewing our business model access Mentorship, Guidance and training on how to scale our project with our proposed franchising model so as to grow our environmental and social. impact 

Normally the plastic extrusion process takes time, which increases energy consumption and increases production costs; this has been a major challenge to many plastic extrusion facilities in many parts of the world, which has forced those facilities to use chemicals to speed up the extrusion process, the chemicals that in turn pollute the environment. We have developed a chemical free, and energy conserving plastic extrusion technology called “Waxy ӀӀ technology” The technology solves both issues, uses natural substance – natural profiled waxy (from the bees) which are inverted during the extrusion process set at different temperature, helping plastic materials of different polymers reach their melting point quickly while retaining their original stability and strength, hence low energy consumption resulting to low production costs and affordable building materials. We are simply the pioneer of chemical free and energy conserving plastic extrusion technology in Africa.

In the next five years we want to reduce the cost of building materials by 50% when using building materials from recycled ocean plastic waste.

Currently we are withdrawing  over 15.5 Tones of plastic waste every month  and prevent them from ending up into oceans, and use those plastic waste to manufacture plastic timbers, hence we save an estimated 250 acres of forest that would have been cut and same time preventing 4,500,000 kg of CO2 emissions further mitigating climate change. 

We measure the impact of our project by looking on to the amount of waste plastics withdrawn from the environment, prevented from ending to the ocean and used to manufacture plastic timbers for affordable building and construction activities,  Currently we are withdrawing  over 15.5 Tones of plastic waste every month and prevent them from ending up into oceans, manufacturing over 1600 Plastic timbers per month and saving 8 hectares of forests that would have been cut. Our project saves trees, so as to conserve our forests, forests helps us address the climate change by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, forests act as carbon sinks removing CO2 from the atmosphere hence mitigating climate change.

 With our garbage medical insurance, where poor slum folks are able to exchange their plastic waste for medical insurance, We measure the social impact of the project by looking on the number of families that have acquired the medical insurance, as we aim to reduce high child mortality rate in slums by 35% and reduce by 65% deaths among expectant women caused by home-based deliveries and post-natal bleeding.

We manufacture plastic timber from waste plastics and hence enable the community access durable, affordable building material that are cheaper by 32% compared with current materials in the market. And the long term goal is to reduce the cost of building material by 50% to enable over 10,000 families living in slum own affordable shelters.

We have developed a chemical free, and energy conserving plastic extrusion technology called “Waxy ӀӀ technology” The technology solves both issues, uses natural substance – natural profiled waxy (from the bees) which are inverted during the extrusion process set at different temperature, helping plastic materials of different polymers reach their melting point quickly while retaining their original stability and strength, hence low energy consumption resulting to low production costs, We are simply the pioneer of chemical free and energy conserving plastic extrusion technology in Africa.

We encourage collaboration as much awe can, we believe that the more people work together and learn from each other's experiences while working on a project, the more inclusive the workplace becomes. It can also help build a sense of community in the office. That’s why we prioritize collaboration and teamwork in the workplace.

Our Business Model involves designing, manufacturing and direct selling of plastic timbers to real estate developers, advertising agencies, domestic home developers, telecommunication infrastructure contractors, road contractors, wildlife conservation agencies, farmers and the government.

On sustainability, our project permanently withdraws an item which is considered to be a waste and converts into a useful product which is highly on demand. This way we provide sanitation to slum areas where blocked drainage and sewers due to plastic is common, we employ locals in plastic waste collection where they earn US$ 5.75/day, we pay those employed in our plant at 1.3 times the average national wage. Being a for-profit social enterprise, we are economically sustainable through sales of affordable and durable plastic timbers for building and construction. The market loves the plastic alternatives because they do not rot, are not affected by termites hence last longer, and are easy to work with as they can be cut, drilled and nailed just like timber.

scaling will ensure sustainability, Since we started our social business, we already know that the social and environmental problems we are facing are the same in many regions around the world. Our founder had experience in franchise development; so since the beginning we built our Community Circular Economy System based in the "franchise way" in order to change the "waste" management system in as many places as we can. We will replicate our business model by franchise model. We are already working to start in Uganda from September 2022.