After our weary but smooth journey, we arrived on Zanzibar. We had to take two planes, two taxis and one boat, but we made it. Upon arrival, we were warmly welcomed by the staff of the Zenji Hotel, which is also a part of the Chako enterprise.
Jephrey, one of the employees showed us our apartment and some other Stone town essentials, where to buy electricity for example. The next morning, we experienced just how essential this electricity shop would turn out to be, because after treating ourselves to one night of air-conditioning, our energy provision was completely depleted. This resulted in an exciting adventure the next day: shopping for electricity which in Zanzibar, you are expected to buy on a prepaid basis. It also made us aware of just how much energy an AC uses in a day: the same amount of electricity we have used in approximately the last four days when only cooling our apartment down with ceiling fans.
Every morning, we start our day with breakfast at the Zenji hotel. The food there is great, but another reason for going there, is the lack of an alternative. We are still not sure what the local people here eat in the morning . After a filling breakfast we take a Dala Dala, a tiny bus where about 25 people are squeezed in together, to Chako. Even though it might seem a little unpolished from the outside. It is watertight system.
On our official first day, we went to Chako and got a tour of the workplace. Mbrisho, one of the managers showed us around. We got to know the employees and had the opportunity to tell them about our project. Everybody was quite enthusiastic and we felt very welcome!
The next day we got to meet the other manager, Christine. We presented our ideas and talked about the expectations of the project. We set some dates for fairs and other public events with which we can help. We also made an appointment for when we can join the employees on a glass bottle hunt. Rumour has it they are really biting this time of year!
The first thing on our list to research was the use of PET, of which water bottles are made, for injection moulding, the production method we plan on using. PET bottles are abundant on the island and therefore a large part of the waste generated here in Zanzibar. The result however turned out to be quite disappointing: up until now PET's qualities for injection moulding are not good enough. The reason is mainly because of the high shrinkage and discoloring due to heating. This does not mean it is completely impossible to use PET for our project, but given the time span we have, it would be wise to start off with something easier like HDPE. This is what bottle caps (and most shampoo bottles, jerrycans and detergent flasks) are made of. The downside to this finding is that most plastic waste here consists of plastic water bottles. This is due to the fact that the tap water is undrinkable. However, we need to remember that starting small is no crime and even a small contribution is still a step in the right direction.
It soon became time to actually start with our project. Wednesday, Mbrisho showed us were we could find all the different hardware stores to buy all the components for our machines. To call them "stores" would be an overstatement. It was more like a labyrinth of chaotic little warehouses. The astonishing part was though, that every shop owner knew exactly what supplies he had in store and if we were not able to find a certain part we were looking for, they would send us to a shop were they would have it. It was incredible to see how friendly and non-competitive the owners are towards one another, it felt like they were one big family.
Luckily Mbrisho, the local manager of Chako, came along, without him the communication would not have gone as smooth. This is mainly because of our lack of knowledge about the Swahili language and the lack of English of some of the local shipowners. This is a good initiative to start learning Swahili, the local language. It was a very successful day! We now have a good idea of the supplies that are and are not available on this island. Furthermore, we had a good financial overview of the price of the parts (which was not bad at all).
Friday, we went back to the dream of every engineer, the neighbourhood with all the technical supplies. We bought some more machine parts like screws, nuts and bolts to be able to start building the machine on Monday.
Yesterday, we started exploring the current partnerships that Chako uses for the Glass Bottle collection. From the list we looked into companies that might want to expand their partnership and also start delivering their HDPE (meaning bottle caps, shampoo bottles and such) to us.
We also got started on building the first parts of the machine! We decided to start with the shredder because it explains very clearly what the machine would be able to do in the end. It is also a very exciting part for the employees to start off with because of the rapid progress you can make in 1 day. There were 2 employees that were especially interested in helping with the first steps. They were very excited of what it would become. Thanks to them we made some great strides forward during this first building day. It gave a wonderful perspective of what we will be able to do the next few weeks!
