Plastic ingestion by elephants in Victoria Falls has inspired a trio of locals to begin an innovative project to turn plastic waste into a flexible and sturdy new building material, while creating jobs for local communities.
Ele-Collection was co-founded by locals Ben Norton, Simon Teede and Rainer Von Urff-Kaufeld, with the goal of removing all plastic waste from the popular Zimbabwean tourist town.
The initiative was inspired by an incident involving an aggressive bull elephant which had charged Norton’s father – renowned wildlife artist Larry Norton – while he was walking in the bush with Teede.
“I remember standing an watching Larry as he faced this raging bull elephant, thinking for sure that he was dead. Larry threw a rock which hit the elephant on the temple and caused it to stop, allowing us to run away. The week before, a man had been killed in similar conditions after being chased down by an elephant,” said Teede.
Autopsies from the elephants showed that their stomachs were filled with plastic waste, which had likely caused sickness and aggression.
“In Victoria Falls, plastic management is not as good as it should be. With the amount of chemicals and toxic waste ingested by these elephants, they were compromised and became aggressive. Plastic particles cause toxicity in the body and over time the animals die,” said Roger Perry, from the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust.
Von Urff-Kaufeld said that this problem encouraged him to explore new methods of recycling the waste plastic, which is stored in a large rubbish dump in the town.
“I’ve been thinking about recycling for a while because I’ve seen the dump burning numerous times. You see the plastic in elephant dung all over town so it’s very evident that there is a major plastic problem.”
He said that his original idea was to manufacture plastic bricks.
“From there, I came across plastic recycled aggregate for concrete, which was an absolute gamechanger,” said Von Urff-Kaufeld.
After being ground into dust, the lightweight aggregate is incorporated into concrete, making it more flexible and able to expand and contract. The beauty with the manufacturing is that the plastics don’t need to be cleaned, because the process accepts a 10% residue of contaminants such as dirt.
“This can be used for everything from the concrete under our feet to mortar between bricks. We don’t just want to do this, we NEED to remove all this plastic; it’s a necessity,” Von Urff-Kaufeld added.
Ben Norton said that the recycling solution would also create economic opportunities for communities.
“We struggle to motivate people not to litter and to want to clean up all the trash we’ve created over decades. This can attach value to plastic, which can be paid for per kilogram and result in at least double the minimum wage earnings. It can create a self-motivated widespread community clean-up that draws plastic out of areas and bring income to the people who need it most.”
Ele-Collection’s great dream is to clean up the whole of the Kavango Zambezi region, which includes conservation areas in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola and Zambia.
“We need help. This is a big problem, and a big problem needs a big group of people,” Norton said.
