PLASTIC FANTASTIC
Flipflopi is dead. Long live Flipflopi!
It’s all over except for the autopsy: Flipflopi, the 10 m, 7 t sailing dhow with a hull covered in a skin made of the footwear in its name, no longer visits ports of call along the coast of Africa’s Lake Victoria.
“The dhow sits perched upon a structure by the entrance of the boatyard,” according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Its current state is a far cry from the glory days of its maiden voyage from Lamu, Kenya, to Zanzibar, Tanzania. It is undergoing a kind of post mortem to asses engineering flaws, what worked well and how the next one can be improved upon.”
One thing that worked better than expected was the little boat’s ability to raise awareness about plastics recycling and the threat of waste.
“The dhow sits perched upon a structure by the entrance of the boatyard,” according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Its current state is a far cry from the glory days of its maiden voyage from Lamu, Kenya, to Zanzibar, Tanzania. It is undergoing a kind of post mortem to asses engineering flaws, what worked well and how the next one can be improved upon.”
One thing that worked better than expected was the little boat’s ability to raise awareness about plastics recycling and the threat of waste.
 Behold the spawn of Flipflopi, a taxi dhow made with locally built moulds and recycled plastics (Photo: UNEP) |
The UNEP said the FlipFlopi Project plans to build an even bigger boat that could sail to Cape Town, South Africa, and beyond. It noted that the organisation now teaches young, often unemployed people about plastic pollution and recycling combined with boat-building skills that the island is famous for.
New products include small taxi dhows made with 100% in-house designed and manufactured moulds and locally collected and recycled plastics, and the boat is already being tested for potential commercial use.
Maybe they will name the first one Flipflopi II.
19.05.2023 Plasteurope.com [252731-0]
Published on 19.05.2023