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Eco-Friendly Alternatives: Young Malawians Fight Climate Change and Deforestation with Plastic Bottle Bricks and Manure Briquettes
The group began their interventions in 2019, after observing that Malawi was losing many trees to charcoal-making and brick production.
Malawi: A group of young Malawians in Mzuzu City, known as Youth Action, have found a unique way to fight climate change and deforestation by producing bricks and briquettes from plastic bottles and manure from waste, writes Susan Moyo.
The group began their interventions in 2019, after observing that Malawi was losing many trees to charcoal-making and brick production.
According to Mathews Kumwenda, the director of Youth Action, the organization is dedicated to waste management and keeping the city of Mzuzu clean.
"We collect plastic bottles in and around the city's townships which we reuse. We use these plastic bottles to turn them into bricks to ease the pressure on trees," Kumwenda said. He added that their goal is to produce these plastic bricks in large quantities so that people will switch from using mud bricks to plastic bricks, which can last up to 500 years without damage.
In addition to producing bricks, Youth Action is also making briquettes from sawdust and cartons as an environmentally friendly alternative energy source.
"As the government is urging people to use environmentally friendly alternatives sources of fuel, our organization is producing briquettes from sawdust and cartons to be used as a source of energy for cooking," Kumwenda said.
He noted that unlike charcoal production, which requires a lot of trees to be cut, briquettes use small amounts of sawdust and cartons to make.
One of the beneficiaries, Dorothy Chirambo, a resident of Chibavi township in Mzuzu, said the briquettes are more affordable than charcoal and are environmentally friendly.
"We buy briquettes at 5,500 Kwacha per 50 kilogram bag while charcoal is sold at 9,000 or 10,000 kwacha per 50 kilogram," said Chirambo.
In addition to producing bricks and briquettes, the youth are also producing organic manure to provide relief to farmers who cannot afford the rising cost of inorganic fertilizer. Kumwenda said they are producing organic fertilizer from waste which they are collecting around the city.
"It is our wish that every farmer switches to organic fertilizer so that incidences of hunger as made history. We are selling a 50 kilogram bag of these fertilizer at 15,000 Kwacha," he said.
Despite the efforts made by young people to address climate change, Kumwenda claims that the main barrier is opposition to the switch from charcoal to briquettes.
To lessen the effects of climate change in the nation, mindsets must be changed.
Youth Action organization has over 50 members and among the organization's objectives are to promote behavior change among youth, waste management through innovation and gender-based violence management.