Pineapple has known health benefits. But what about waste from the tropical fruit that grows abundantly in Africa? Young Kenyans are using pineapple leaves to make shoes. Learn how to make stylish and fashionable footwear from recycled pineapple waste.
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00:00My name is Olivia Aworokinyi, I'm the co-founder and CEO of Fine Kazi Company Limited.
00:12Our DIY is that we turn waste pineapple leaves into stylish and fashionable shoes.
00:27In Kenya we produce a lot of pineapples, so once the pineapples are harvested, this is
00:34what is usually considered waste and it's usually burnt or chemically decomposed.
00:40Once we get the pineapple leaves from the farm, we come to the sorting centre.
00:47As you can see, the women are separating the leaves and sorting them out before we start
00:54the extraction process.
00:56Across our entire value chain, we work with a lot of women.
01:00As you can see in this process of the sorting, extraction and spinning as well, we are working
01:07with women because we believe women empowerment is very important and this is also part of
01:16SDG number five, which is gender equality.
01:19Our idea started back in 2018 as a school project.
01:24It was actually a design thinking challenge where we were challenged to identify problems
01:31in the society and come up with solutions.
01:35In the process of taking a business trip to Thika, Kenya, we happened to pass along huge
01:43hectares of pineapple plantations and we were able to see huge plantation farms.
01:52But what shocked us the most were a lot of waste leaves piled up alongside the road.
01:58So out of curiosity, when we decided to inquire, that's when we learned that the leaves are
02:04actually considered as waste after the pineapples are harvested.
02:09We had no idea of how we are going to achieve this.
02:14So we literally took the leaves and went to a colleague's backyard and this is how we
02:21were extracting the fibres manually, just to prove that our concept can work.
02:30But it's very tiring and cumbersome as you can see.
02:34After a long and tedious process, we end up with this.
02:39So these are the pineapple fibres after they have been extracted by hand.
02:44But the process is long and tedious.
02:47This is why we work with the women's group to use the machine, because the machine is
02:55more efficient, it saves us a lot of time and it's not as tedious as the manual process.
03:02As you can see, we have been able to extract a lot of fibres from the machine as compared
03:25to the manual process.
03:28What we could have achieved within one hour, we have actually done triple the work and
03:36the quality of the fibres is actually better.
03:39So what we are doing is just checking the quality of the fibres.
03:46After we have extracted and checked the quality of the fibres, we go straight into washing
03:53so that we can get rid of the green colouring matter.
03:58After I dip them in water and wash them, the next step is just drying them under natural
04:06sunlight so that they can be ready for dyeing.
04:11Once we have dried the wet fibres, which look like this, we are able to now obtain the dried
04:18fibres which are in its purest form, no chemicals have been added.
04:23So this is what we now prepare for the dyeing stage.
04:26We are able to dye these fibres with different colours, different dyes, which are all natural
04:35as you can see.
04:37Then for example, these black fibres, we dye them with black natural dye, which we are
04:46able to make these pairs of shoes with as well.
04:51Then after the dyeing process, we spin the fibres into a yarn, which are now woven into
05:00this material.
05:01Once we have the material, we are able to give it to the cobblers who cut different
05:07pattern pieces depending on the design of the shoe.
05:12And after the pattern pieces are cut, they are able to stitch them into stylish and fashionable
05:19shoes like this one.
05:20I encourage the youth in the community to look for waste resources around the community,
05:27whether it's plastic, agro-waste and add value to it, while creating a positive social
05:34impact in the community.
05:36My DIY is to take waste pineapple leaves and convert it into stylish and fashionable shoes.
05:43If I can do it, you can also do it.
05:50Learn more at www.plastics-car.com