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What if we go beyond the optimum?
07 | 08 | 2019
11 days left and less than 100€ to reach the optimum; thus, we should all do a last effort to reach the goal. And we were wondering: what if we go beyond our goal? What will we do with those extra funds?
The optimum amount should allow us to manufacture the 4 machines and to operate with them for 2 months. But, honestly, these months we have started to move more, to research and meet different people related to the project and we are experiencing first hand the “TIA” This Is Africa: although we have included a 20% contingency for manufacturing the machines, in Njombe, one has to be prepared for the unexpected and be able to plan in a place where plans change in the last moment. (Below you can read a small anecdote from a couple of weeks ago).
Apart from these unexpected things that will arise, we have identified other elements that, sooner or later, we may need for the project:
- Design and establish a plastic waste collection system.
- Some new machines designed by the Precious Plastic Version 4 community, such as a plastic washing system or an iron press, etc.
- We would like to offer the first trainings at a reduced price.
- Materials and resources to carry out awareness and clean up activities in Njombe.
- Improvements in machines and other tools and additional machines: renewable energy supply in the workshop, CNC, filament production for 3D printer, etc.
There it goes the small anecdote:
As you know, we are conducting a market research, for which our partners of the Environmental Department of the Njombe Town Council provided us with a list with different local industries. We choose one industry of each type to visit and we asked the Town Council to help us contacting a food processing factory, “Imiliwaha Food Processing Factory”. A few days later, they told us that they had organized the visit and that they would come with us. Perfect.
Getting to Imiliwaha by public transport is not an easy task and since that day no car was available at the office, we had to call a taxi to give us three a lift. We went to pick Lawi up, the town council officer, but he was together with two other officers; hence, they had to take their own car and driver.
We reached Imiliwaha after about 50 km; to the convent where 150 nuns run several schools, an orphanage and a health center. After a presentation of the project and explanation of the reason for our visit, it was time for questions from the 10 sisters and the priest who were hosting us. Their questions showed their interest in the project and in being able to use the machines themselves to recycle plastic. No mention to potential uses of recycled plastic products in their food processing business. In fact, after a while, when we asked them for a tour around their facilities to see the processes, they told us that they only prepare bread, cookies and sausages for their own consumption and that they sometimes sell them, but with no business goal. We were totally surprised, because we had seen the products they prepare for sale in Njombe.
Finally, we could at least see the stone oven in which they prepare bread and cookies and the carpentry and printing workshops. They invited us for breakfast, and exactly 5 minutes after we finished, we were sitting down at the table because it was lunch time. In Tanzania it is not polite to refuse food; thus, we filled our stomachs even more. Everything was delicious. But I was looking at my watch while thinking that every “lost” minute means some more shilling for the taxi...
In the taxi, driving back to Njombe I was angry: what is the point of mobilizing 8 people for half a day and paying a taxi to visit a food processing factory, if we end up visiting a stone oven that works with wood? What could we have done to avoid this nonsense?
Then, once the emotion was gone, we realized that this is how one learns: next time we will make sure that what we are going to visit is really interesting for the project. Also, although our expectations were different, opportunities arise from any type of meeting: given their interest in the project, I would not be surprised if any of the nuns participated in one of the training sessions once the workshop is running. And we now know that the nuns run an elementary and a secondary school, an orphanage and a health center which means potential collaborations for awareness raising activities and of course, recycled products.
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