Through their inspiring OCEAN project, Flipflopi is tackling plastic pollution and transforming waste management in Kenya’s Lamu Archipelago. Read on to explore their ambitious plans to expand their impact...
In 2016, Flipflopi launched with a simple but radical idea: that waste could be transformed into opportunity, and that communities could lead environmental solutions. What began in Lamu has grown into a decade of learning about systems change, culture, and the ocean that connects us all. Over the past ten years, Flipflopi has learned that the Lamu Archipelago offers a powerful lens into some of the world’s most urgent and interconnected challenges. Here, the impacts of climate change, pollution, habitat loss, and social injustice are deeply visible, but we can also see the pathways to solutions.
Rising from the beautiful yet waste-strewn beaches, mangroves, and villages of Lamu, Flipflopi began with a clear mission: to end single-use plastics and ensure that all remaining plastics are kept in circulation as part of a circular economy. The Flipflopi Ndogo (the small one) is our symbol to the world that plastic is too precious a material to use once and discard. If you can make a boat capable of sailing thousands of kms out of used plastics, single-use simply doesn’t make sense.
Flipflopi Ndogo sailing on Lake Victoria
Setting sail to create impact
Since launching Ndogo in 2018 she has sailed from Lamu to Zanzibar, circumnavigated Lake Victoria, and journeyed overland to campaign for an end to single-use plastics at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi.
By harnessing indigenous knowledge and revitalising artisanal heritage skills, particularly in design, carpentry, and traditional boatbuilding, we have paired local expertise with science, engineering, and technological innovation. The result has been circular plastic recovery systems that work for the benefit of communities, turning waste into value while creating livelihoods rooted in place and culture.
What started as an innovative, low-tech, and symbolic action has grown into a model that brings together academic research, sustainable development, and social enterprise.
To date, we’ve removed and repurposed over 400 tonnes of plastic waste from rural communities across Lamu County. Alongside this on-the-ground impact, our work has helped inspire policy dialogue and action on the global plastic pollution crisis, which continues to disproportionately affect shoreline communities across the Global South.
This journey has been made possible through long-term partnerships and support from organisations including the OCEAN Grants Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, UK Aid, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), CMA CGM, Northumbria University, ALN Kenya, and hundreds of individuals.
Ten years and four vessels later, boatbuilding and expedition sailing remain central to who we are: a living expression of learning, connection, and the belief that solutions to global challenges can be built from the ground up.
This is an excerpt taken from a blog from the Flipflopi website here.
