Waste plastic is not recycled in Cape Verde but either left in the environment, in streets and on beaches, or collected and burnt in garbage dumps. This is bad for the environment, but also for the health of people. Cape Green intends to start a plastic recycling program that involves the local population, especially young people.

We intend to buy a portable plastic shredding machine (see photo). It shreds and melts waste plastics like bottles, bags and more; the end product of the process is plastic wire on a spool.

We also intend to buy the complement to this shredder, the extruder, a machine (of the same size) with various moulds that melts the plastic wire and produces a variety of objects in different colours made out of the waste plastic. These can be household objects like plates, cups and buckets but also objects that are suitable for selling to tourists. Colourful bracelets, pendants, small animals and so on. We will invite young people to collect waste plastic and pay them. This is an incentive to clean the environment.

In November 2024 two team members, technical expert Aren Slootweg and Ton van der Lee, will go on an investigative mission to see what the needs and possibilities are. We will investigate where the waste plastic is and in what quantity and what the possibilities are for collecting plastic bottles and glasses from restaurants and bars.

We will also find out what products are popular among tourists and what products are needed by the local population, like for instance, chairs and stools. We will also find out what the interest from local shops is to resell these products; there are a number of small tourist shops and quite a few shops that sell household items to the local population. The idea is to sell our products to the shops at low price or give them in consignation for them to sell, after which they will pay us our basic price back.

We will also implement a test project which is low tech; this concerns the making of tote bags, beach bags and shopping bags from recycled plastic for which only a clothes iron and a sewing machine are needed. We have already found a seamstress willing to work with us and a workspace for rent. We will see how much interest there is among tourists for this product and also approach tourist shops to see their response.

We have already tested and designed a number of products, like these wallets and bags for mobile phones and these chairs

You can read more about our investigative mission on our blog

You can read a piece about product labels on our blog

We are also building a prototype of a chair made out of recycled plastic.