There was celebration at Mkangagani village in Kilifi North after an Italian conservationist built a house from plastic bottles for a physically challenged boy.
Poverty had confined Adam Shida and his mother to a mud-walled, thatched roof house.
The walls of the unique house dubbed ‘Adam’s bottle house’ are made of plastic waste and it is the first of its kind in that village.
Curious residents turned up at the home of Shida, a Class 8 pupil at Gede Special School, to witness the unique project that will not only provide decent shelter for the boy but also acted as a sensitisation for people not to dump plastics carelessly.
Rita Valentini the donor representing Mondo Selidale Ets—an Italian NGO— accompanied by her friends and conservationists from the Progress Welfare Association of Malindi — which is at the forefront of making Malindi green and blue by organising monthly clean-ups— together with the County Executive Member for Environment organised a party where the residents danced and ate as they celebrated the project.
Valentini said he has been following Shida’s family for a long time.
“This family was not lucky because they had no father and has a child with disability who needed help. The mother looked for me and asked me if I could assist. I accepted and I sent the child for the surgery to Naromoru hospital,” she said.
She said someone asked her to help them again because they have no house, money or any income-generating activity to build one and that getting food is always a challenge.
Valentini said they decided to build the bottle house at the home which is the first of its kind in the village.
She said they already built a bottle house along the Tsavo road and a school in Soweto Myeye within Malindi town which was also built using bottles.
“The challenge is teaching the people how they can build a house using bottles. They never knew that bottles could be used to construct a building and used to throw bottles in the environment, this is plastic and once thrown, it pollutes the environment,” she said.
She said through the project, they expect people to understand the importance of reusing plastic and making houses using bottles.
In an interview, Shida could not hide his joy for now owning a decent house and thanked Valentini for helping him have his legs amputated and now building a house.
“I thank her for building this house for me, it’s a miracle to be able to have such a house, it is spacious," he said.
Shida said he didn't know plastic bottles could be used to build a house, adding that he will now be more cautious on plastics disposal calling for others to reuse them.
Kilifi CEC member for Environment Omar Said said the building had a lot of lessons for the community on solid waste management, particularly on the three principles of reduce, reuse and recycle.
“What we are seeing here is one of the reuse aspects, we used the bottle for drinking water, and instead of throwing it to harm the environment we have reused it. Therefore there is profit in this as some of the bottles have come for free and other were bought,” he said.
Phillip Kimaro Shida’s family friend said the plastic bottle house’s style was meant to help in the conservation of the environment during the era of climate change mitigation.
He said they used over 10,000 bottles to come up with the structure which reduced the number of bottles being littered within the environment.
“I would like to advice the people of Kenyans that we should conserve our environment. We are losing our environment, there is climate change which is affecting a lot of things,” he said.
Julius Charo the mason who constructed the house said he has used glass bottles in the past to build a house, but admitted that the plastic one was a bit challenging because the bottles had to be filled with sand and sealed with cement.
“Many people used to flock here to ask questions about the unique construction, and now many have changed minds and say they will no longer throw away bottles,” he said.
Eric Kahindi a neighbour said previously, they never knew that plastic bottles could construct a house and said locals have also learnt that the trash could create cash.
Kate Mwikali the chairperson of PWAM said she was happy to see residents flocking in large numbers to see the project and learn that plastics is a source of income.
-Edited by SKanyara
