When it rains in Uganda, plastic waste clogs street drains. For Faith Aweko, growing up in a slum in Kampala, the capital city, heavy downpours meant water flooding into the family home at the side of the road.
“During rainy seasons most of the roads here in Kampala are full of plastic bottles and bags because people dispose of plastic in trenches and gutters. This makes it hard for people like me in the slums,” says Aweko. Along with Shamim Naluyima and Rachel Mema, two women she met on a course on social innovation, she launched Reform Africa in 2018, turning plastic waste into waterproof bags.
A team of women collect plastic bags and bottles from the streets and dumps. It is washed, dried and processed into a sustainable leather-like material to be made into backpacks, shopping bags and toiletry bags.
On average they make about 20 bags a day, which are sold in six boutiques across Uganda and on Reform Africa’s website, with prices ranging from $9 to $25 (£7 to £20). The venture has been a success.
Aweko says some of the backpacks are bought by humanitarian organisations and NGOs in Uganda.
“In the rural areas, you find that people cannot afford a decent schoolbag, so the parents buy plastic bags. But when the kids come home from school they are either torn or lost,” she says.
Sales initially fell in Uganda’s pandemic lockdown but bags are now being bought in the Netherlands, Germany, Britain and the US.