From invasive species to organic plastic substitute

DW (English)

Water hyacinths devastate waterways the world over. A startup in Kenya has found a way to turn the invasive plant into a plastic substitute. And give fishers a new source of income.

Transcript

00:00Water hyacinths as far as the eye can see. The pretty flowers are among the most invasive

00:13plants on earth. This infestation is on Lake Naivasha, one of the biggest lakes in Kenya.

00:21The area is known for its many flower farms. They use fertilizers in their farming,

00:25some of which end up in the lake through runoff. This makes the water hyacinths grow even faster.

00:34Satellite images show the invasive species as green areas on the lake.

00:39Most of the banks are overgrown, so fishing boats often get stuck in them.

00:47Something climate tech engineer Joseph Kithiru never wants to experience again.

00:52Having got stranded on the lake himself once, he now hopes to tackle two environmental challenges

00:57at once. What we're trying to look at is how do we use one problem, which is water hyacinth,

01:05to the other problem, which is plastic waste pollution. And now how we do this is that we

01:09work together with these fishermen who are affected at the lakeside. That's good news

01:13for fisherman Simon Macharia. His catch has been dwindling for years. The water hyacinths

01:19absorb the oxygen and block the light, so the fish no longer come here to spawn.

01:26Since the water hyacinths started growing in Lake Naivasha, we tried to get a solution from

01:31the government, but in vain. Then we found out about Hyapark. We harvest water hyacinth,

01:38dry it and sell it to them. We do business with them and they pay us.

01:4350 fishers are now involved. They deliver the dried plants to Hyapark, where they are first

01:47shredded and then mixed with eco-friendly additives. The liquid mass is poured into

01:52trays and left to dry. They process 150 kilos of hyacinths a week. The end product is designed

01:59for applications that would normally require plastic.

02:06One of those places in agriculture where we have a lot of seedling bags that we have to

02:10where we have a lot of seedling bags being packaged in plastic bags and we have our

02:16biodegradable bags that are inserted with the seedlings into the ground. As they decompose,

02:20they release nutrients that accelerate the growth rate of the plants, as well as you reduce the

02:25amount of water you use in irrigation. So far, they've harvested 20 hectares of hyacinths.

02:32The invasive plant now has a second life that instead nourishes the soil and other plants.

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