00:00What if the trash you walk past every day could change lives?
00:04In Nairobi, one woman is turning broken glass into beauty and empowering a generation of women to do the same.
00:17I'm very passionate about waste, but I think one of the things I would ask, why would you not be?
00:23It's like magic, having the privilege to convert something from something unwanted to something extremely wanted and of value without
00:33spending too much to acquire.
00:37Nairobi produces up to 4,000 tons of waste daily.
00:41Only 10% is properly managed.
00:44The rest, it ends up in places like Dandora, one of Africa's largest open dump sites.
00:51My name is Nelly Gessare.
00:54I am the founder of Green Thing Kenya.
00:56And Green Thing Kenya started as a brand that uses product as conversation status to sustainability and climate change.
01:05But I think it's slowly becoming a brand that is trying to reimagine value.
01:12That's how I would describe it.
01:14I was a journalist before, and I think I've slowly grown into working at the intersection of waste justice, climate
01:22and community.
01:24In 2017, I gave birth to my last child, my daughter, and she was born sick.
01:32And there was nothing that we could do to understand where the sickness came from.
01:37But I can tell you, it was something that required surgery for heart to be okay now.
01:42And we were seeing many specialists at that time, one of the big neurologists, and they said,
01:47Nizi Vitu Mnakula.
01:49Now, when you think about Nizi Vitu Mnakula, when you've been studying and storytelling so much around waste and sustainability,
01:56you know, the plastic packaging that is mostly casinogenic, the lotions that we put on our bodies that are made
02:06of ingredients that we can't even pronounce,
02:08yet it's okay to put on our body, the food, the environment, the clothes made of plastic, the bedding made
02:16of plastic.
02:17Surely there's no way we're going to get away with this.
02:19I started Green Thing now in 2019, using products that people use every day as provocatively as possible to start
02:29conversations on sustainability
02:30and what that means in terms of living a life of dignity within planetary boundaries.
02:36Thousands of women work without protection, sorting through toxic waste to survive.
02:43But one woman saw something different in the chaos.
02:47All unfair or unsustainable consumption has victims, right?
02:52And some of the biggest victims are wastebakers.
02:54And it was so important for me to partner with them for the hot shop.
02:58And that's why we primarily source our glass waste from East Africa's largest dance site, Dandora.
03:05Beauty with impacting one wastebaker, it's not just the wastebaker.
03:10You actually teach them that this could be better for your children, for your women group, for their church members.
03:18And that's what I wanted.
03:19I want more women to understand or imagine value at their category.
03:26So as wastebakers, I wanted to get more.
03:28And I wanted to work with a group because it's easier.
03:30They have systems better.
03:32It was easier for them to formalize their processes like payment.
03:36Because that's also another challenge in waste trade in Kenya or waste management in Kenya is that waste management has
03:43been so informal that it's difficult for formal businesses to operate there.
03:48At the moment, I'm working with Dandora women wastebakers who remove glass waste from the dump site, which we then
03:54bring to our hot shop, where Wendy and William, our superb artisans, glassblowers, I would say, they convert them to
04:03beautiful, beautiful sculptural art that is functional.
04:06At the moment, Kenya is importing 200,000 tons per year of taxa waste.
04:11But our goal has never been products.
04:14Our goal has always been, how do we use this to educate community?
04:18How do we use this to show the community that they have power to actually change?
04:23My name is Wendy Kailacheno.
04:25I'm 20 years old.
04:27At Green Thing, I do as a glassblower assistance.
04:30The workers here inspired me to be a glassblower.
04:33So it's a good thing.
04:34Women can do anything.
04:35So I inspire them.
04:35If you want to be a glassblower, you can be.
04:37Green Thing is no longer just a studio.
04:40It's a movement.
04:41A reminder that sustainability isn't just about the planet.
04:46It's about people.
04:47And in Nelly's hands, Broken Glass tells a new story.
04:52One of beauty, resilience, and hope.
04:57Waste value schools are so important, as important as attitude change, that we cannot have new things anymore.
05:07New things are going to be made from reimagining waste.
05:11I bless you.
05:13They're our students.
05:13You are grateful.
05:14I'm� here, Gary.
05:14I'm in the United States.
05:14Don't governo.
05:14Women's hands, don't be une80.
05:15There.
05:15Those are supposed to be a chant.ання
05:15laws, don't be a year. I
05:15You
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