Mombasa Ocean Festival Roadmap

The MOF seeks to educate the community about ecological threats to our precious marine environment and the ways in which we all can better protect these environments. Vintz Plastics LTD & Rintz Industries will team up with the Alliance Française* to raise awareness about the importance of sustainable ocean management and the dangers of plastic pollution to the local community. During this week, we will participating of dfferent educational activities: - Environmental awareness workshops in public schools in Mombasa - Scientific day on the theme of Marine Aquaculture - School visits at Kmfri (Children meets scientists) -The Festival comes to Mburukenge (Tudor) – Community clean up, exhibition, open air screening - Plastic art School Challenge with 15 schools (private and public) - Visual Art Exhibition – recycled art - Ocean Art Day on Saturday 10th of June (art activities for kids/parents) Vintz & Rintz will be part of the: PLASTIC ART SCHOOL CHALLENGE The aim will be to inspire innovation and educate students in participating schools on plastic pollution. Teachers from participating schools will be invited for a training session on plastic recycling and encouraged to share their knowledge with the students. Rintz will be bring its technical support by donating box of recycled materials of different colours and shapes, which the group will use, to create a sculpture, collage etc… on the theme of “Ocean” and intervene in the workshops in the different schools in which the students will be taken through a workshop to create functional items (pencil holders, flower pots, packs) through single use plastics (bottle tops, plastic straws...). The workshops will also include a collective work of art made by the students using plastics, which will be displayed in the schools to commemorate the event. SCIENCE TALKS: MARINE AQUACULTURE In order to include a scientific component in the programming of the Mombasa Ocean Festival, we will collaborate with the Alliance Française and be part of scientific discussion on marine aquaculture. Local and international academics, researchers and stakeholders in the private sector will interact and present their work/research. The Alliance Française de Mombasa was founded in 1975. It is a local non-profit educational and cultural organization supported by the French Embassy whose mission is teaching the French language, promoting cultural diversity and developing partnerships between France and Kenya.

Capacity, capacity, capacity to recover more Roadmap

Capacity, capacity, capacity - the three most important factors to keep any waste management operation financially sustainable. Our current collection vehicle is a lovely three-wheeler with fun cartoons on it. But as lovely and fun looking it is as much of a strain it is to operate it profitable. The calculation is easy - At maximum capacity the value of the plastic waste transported must be more than the cost of operation. Sadly, prices of waste plastic are still too low in Sri Lanka to make that calculation work. At the moment it only makes sense for us to run the vehicle because we can recycle some of the plastic waste in house and generate more value per weight. We do have buyers for all types of plastics, even nylon waste fishing gear but to collect waste material in bulk our payload must increase. The next larger vehicle that would secure the profitability of our operation would be a single cab Bolero pick up and has a price of approximately $15,000 USD and part of the financing will come from the sale of our current three-wheeler. Furthermore, a larger vehicle will not only secure the workplaces of our staff members but also create new workplaces in sorting and processing. Considering Sri Lanka’s economic situation, we believe it is very important to provide more work in the country and avoid Sri Lankans going abroad for work, leaving their family behind. So, in the end it is not only about capacity but also our staff, staff, staff. If we want to retain dignified jobs in waste management in Sri Lanka, we need to keep staff from leaving the country. Capacity = retained staff = good work that keeps the environment clean and increases recycling rates of all plastics.