Inovator Zimbabwe Ubah Limbah Styrofoam Jadi Produk Bernilai

[00:00:02]award-winning Tinashae Manonga Manonga most persistent in the world polystyrene into practical products such as cooler bags and cooking bags while highlighting local solutions that promote recycling and entrepreneurship.

[00:00:18]Footage taken on Saturday shows workers at Manonga's company, Tinashae Manonga Tinashae Manonga Outdoor Living Products using plastic and extruded polystyrene to produce bags Manonga on a sustainable With hundreds of bags produced each containing recycled material Manonga believes that his project demonstrates that waste can be a valuable resource.

[00:00:43]Polystyrene waste is a big problem worldwide the innovator It's a non-biodegradable material. It takes more than 500 years to decompose.

[00:00:51]It takes more than 500 years to decompose. So it becomes material that is practically indestructible.

[00:00:57]There's nothing you can do about it.

[00:00:59]If you burn it it becomes it becomes toxic to the atmosphere. It also pollutes the environment.

[00:01:06]Innovators like Manonga show how this waste, which should only be polluting the products.

[00:01:15]We divert waste that should only be polluting the environment.

[00:01:18]We make it into something functional and useful, says Manonga.

[00:01:23]We use corrugated cardboard and polystyrene acts as a filling in large bags like the one I'm holding here. It also acts as an insulator in the cooler boxes you see around me, he says. He adds that 400 grams of polystyrene is used in the largest bags.

[00:01:39]Zimbabwe banned polystyrene almost a decade ago because of its serious environmental impact and to reduce major health risks.

[00:01:47]But thousands of tons of polystyrene still enter the country through the tobacco industry and product packaging.

[00:01:54]In Zimbabwe alone, we produce more than 140 tons of polystyrene every year.

[00:02:00]and the insulation temperature cooler and it stays warm here.

[00:02:24]Um was a single bag um for our best selling ones we use approximately 400 g of polystyrene, of which right now we produce them in hundreds.

[00:02:46]Um polystyrene waste is a big problem um in the whole world.

[00:02:53]Uh why? Because it's a non-biodegradable [clears throat] material. It takes over 500 years for it to decompose.

[00:03:02]So when you discard it it practically stays there.

[00:03:07]It has nothing to do. If you burn it [clears throat] um it's a big pollutant in the atmosphere. It even produces a toxic gas called styrene.

[00:03:32]Yeah, the cooker bag. So a cooker bag is a three-in-one uh function bag. You can use it as a cooker, as a warmer and as a cooler.

[00:03:42]Um so to It's a daily finishes of cooking anything that you cook through boiling. Can be your rice, your samp, or your green mealies. So what you do is that you simply kick your cooking process on the stove. Then you transfer your pot into the bag and you close with this lid here. Then you tightly seal with a drawstring that will be here.

[00:04:00]So, the heat that you have put your pot within inside the bag will be trapped and it will finish off the cooking process for you without even using any extra energy. It's called the um the concept of insulated cooking. If you bring food to boil and you are able to trap the heat, you can finish off the cooking process without using any extra energy. Then there's a cooler. Uh it's filled with insulation right round. So, this allows um it to trap uh enough heat for the duration of the cooking process.

[00:04:31]Then um for cooling, the same concept. When you put something that's cold, stays cold. If it's frozen water, it can actually stay cold for up up to 7 days.

[00:04:47]We're taking waste, we're diverting waste that supposed just to to lie idle in the environment. We're making something that's functional and useful.

[00:04:59]>> Uh I'm good.