Charity begins at home they say. That is exactly my story.

I come from a town called Luanshya that is located on the Copperbelt province of Zambia. Luanshya like many other towns it is one of those polluted by plastic litter in most of its areas. It all started as a dream; I wanted a way that I could make my hometown of Luanshya into a plastic and litter free zone, and I wanted to explore how I could turn plastics trash into valuables that people can buy.

I had so many questions with me. I thought of how i could recycle plastic waste into anything valuable and how possible it could be. Instead of stressing the marine and terrestrial ecosystem, can there be a way that people can live with their plastic litter at the comfort of their homes? Could there be a way that plastic trash could be turned into gold rush? 

This led me into creating a social enterprise i called “Art 4 Climate Zambia". The aim of this project was to get rid of plastic waste from the environment and make visual arts products from it like sculptures. I thought about the influence of art and how it could be used as a tool to influence social change.

I shared the dream with a few others and we could go out, pick up plastic litter and use the plastic litter to make sculptures. Just one sculpture could engulf up to 23 kg of plastic waste.

Before I knew it, a lot of people got interested we started growing in numbers. It erupted into a campaign called ‘Keep Luanshya a Plastic Litter Free Zone’. People joined me in numbers and I received support from the area’s Member of Parliament. We started collaborating efforts with the local government authority.

Today, my social enterprise has grown. We are producing different sculptures out of plastic. As the campaign has grown, there has been significant change seen all over the town in terms of people’s behavior and the general town cleanliness.

The future of the project is to upscale into producing panels out of plastics like desks among many target products. The designs for such equipment are underway. This project will largely reduce pressure on forest timber and the target is rural community schools that are still lacking basic learning equipment to ensure education sector is enhanced through this innovation.

As young people we have a duty to do. We have to become as innovative as possible to change the world. We can make people look at life differently. If they called it 'plastic litter', we can change its name into 'amazing sculptures'. That is how powerful we are. Let us use everything we have, our skills, creativity and energy into impacting society. This is very possible to do if we united each one's voice and sforts together  as one.

I hope you got inspired.

Thanks for your time.