Lamutiki

Anyone remembers David Mayer de Rothschild’s Plastiki, “a 60 feet (18 m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products” that successfully conquered the Pacific Ocean last year?

Well, it seems this young man from Lamu (Kenya) had a similar idea and is in the process of building his own plastic bottle boat. Our reader Arthur Buliva from Kenya just sent us these pictures with the following explanation:

I was in Lamu recently and came across this man who was making a boat out of plastic bottles and old slippers. He was not yet finished with it yet but I took the few photos of the product that I could.

He says that he collects plastic water bottles that the tourists throw on the beach. He also wakes up early in the morning to collect bottles washed ashore from the sea. With these he has constructed the (in his own words, “first in its kind”) boat.

He water-proofs it by sealing the gaps with used slippers collected in the very same way. Then boils tar in order to glue the components all together.

Kenya believe it? 🙂

(all images kindly shared by Arthur Buliva under a CC-SA licence – thx!)

Recycling – tyres, motorbike wheels and water pumps

What do you get if you cross tractor tyres, motorbike wheels and a water pump? Well, in Africa you could get anything! Here’s an odd combination of things related to water – recycled tractor tyres cut to make water troughs

This contribution is thanks to Bankelele (the very cool Kenyan blogger) who responded to a recent post on tractor tyres with the comment “I found a similar one last week and e-mailed it to hash, but perhaps the pics should be added to this post as its the same use of tractor tyre for livestock water”. He spotted it in Feb 2010 during funeral at a homestead in kapsowar, Kenya (note to Banks – Thanks for this, and next time send me low res pics dude!)

water pump engine used for a grinder
well it works doesn't it?

Here’s another water related gadget – a water pump turned into a grinder – and why not? This was spotted and photographed in Gikomba in Nairobi Kenya by Dominic Wanjihia.

wheel barrow

A modified wheel barrow that makes so much more sense – motorbike tyres and check out the puncture proofing on the wheel below

wheelbarrow
Puncture proof!

This was spotted on the Limuru  road works near Nairobi Kenya. Have you seen anything interesting that you’d like to contribute to Afrigadget? Don’t be shy! Send it to us – we’d love to get contributions from across the continent.

Tractor tyres and bush buckets in Masailand

I have just spent a week in the field studying Masailand ecology and community conservation with Princeton University students. The location is not that remote (Kitengela and Olerai within 40 km of Nairobi) and the community are wonderfully resourceful when it comes to day to day tools for pastoralism.

Masai salt lick made from tyres in Kenya

Tractor tyre trough for water for goats and sheep

This old tractor or truck tyre was somehow cut, opened up and sealed at either end to make a perfectly good livestock watering trough. Even Joy Adamson noted that the Masai question using modern appliances if home made ones do the job anyway.

salt lick2small

Tractor tyre cattle salt lick

Another way to make  a salt lick, Evelyn just cut a truck tyre in half and placed it  on the ground supported by stumps.

traditional bucket small

home made bucket works perfectly

Why buy a bucket when you can just make one with an old water container and a piece of metal?

manure spadesmall

Home made shovel

And if you don’t have a shovel for your manure, just straighten out some corrugated iron, cut it and nail to a stick  and Presto – probably more effective than anything you could  buy in Nairobi. Manure is one of the few products sold to passing trucks on these remote ranches.

beads small

Keeping land open for wildlife migrations in and out of Nairobi National Park can be costly to those living with wildlife. Those in The Wildilfe Foundations land lease scheme earn 4$ per  acre per year to keep the properties open (no fences)  and to supplement their income they make beautiful beaded artworks for sale on Olerai Conservancy.

Maasai ladies making beaded works of art Kenya

It might look like a tough life for some of us, but the Masai out here seem perfectly satisfied and at peace

Cleaning massive amounts of water with chlorine

Cleaning massive amounts of water with chlorine from WhiteAfrican on Vimeo.

Suprio Das is part of the water-cleansing team with Killian Deku, Laura Stupin and Bernard Kiwia. Besides the ball-valve doser, they’ve also created a siphon mechanism chlorine filter. It, like all of the IDDS work, uses locally available materials.

This particular project attaches to a hand pump and can cleanse unlimited amounts of water. Best of all, it has no moving parts, so it is less likely to break or wear down over time. It works by dripping chlorine into the water when a certain water level is reached. Then, the water comes pouring out in batches.


Chlorine water filter and doser

Ball Valve Chlorine Doser

Chlorine water filter and doser

With one 5 liter bag of chlorine, and a device that costs $3 to build, you can clean 100,000 liters of water.

Here at Maker Faire Africa is Killian Deku, a Ghanaian working in the IDDS program, has created a ball valve chlorine doser with the help of his team mates from India, the US and Tanzania. Their only real costs were the ball valve and the time taken to create the bamboo structure that holds it. The one variable cost is the bag of chlorine used to cleanse the water.

Ball Valve Chlorine Water Cleanser from WhiteAfrican on Vimeo.