Creating beauty out of waste

As poor waste disposal remains a challenge in the country, Regina Mlambe Store, a teacher at Likuni Secondary School in Lilongwe, has found a better way of dealing with the challenge.

She is making a difference by introducing a new way of managing waste.

Store is among people who produce briquettes or biogas using waste. But now she has taken a whole new approach through which she produces decorative artifacts used in homes, offices, schools and hotels.

She says her interest in environmental issues and waste management motivated her.

Store said when schools were closed due to Covid-19 in 2020, students left a lot of waste at her school. These included plastic bottles, papers and other waste matter which were left in hostels and classes.

She collected them, but had no idea how to dispose them.

Said Store: “It just happened that I slept like a teacher that day. The following day, I woke up as an up-cycling artist. The whole six to seven months Covid-19 school break to me was a blessing in disguise. I was doing self-teaching using try and error method until I perfected myself.

“I saw a big opportunity in the break and I fed this opportunity with whatever I could do. It worked for me as the break turned me into an artist, a woman who is always cautious about her environment and tries to do something in good faith for mother earth.”

Besides turning waste into art as a way of cleaning the environment, she believes this is one way of promoting tourism both at national and international level.

She said: “My art can attract tourists if put in a waste museum. Some artworks are painted to reflect our wildlife and traditions such as use of animal prints and African print.

“I want to make people understand that plastic bottle waste is excess in our environment and they should now start thinking of reusable bottles. When there is too much plastic in our landfills, the environment gets damaged and that affects the biodiversity.”

She says she also wants to sell her artworks elsewhere outside Malawi.

Store produces the decorative products from plastic bottles, cider bottles, school waste paper, cardboards, old towels and ashes.

Store said: “The papers are soaked in water then pounded to turn them into paper clay. Then plastic bottles are cut into skeletal designs, any design I want and mold or cover the skeletal design with the paper clay.”

However, lack of a certified art studio has hindered Store’s progress.

What looked like child’s play has exposed Store even to the President. She exhibited her work when President Lazarus Chakwera launched the clean-up campaign at Chinsapo in Lilongwe. She also exhibited during the launch of the 2022 Tree-planting Season at Dowa Secondary School as well as at the commemoration of the African Day.

Due to this exposure, she has been featured on various radio stations.

“Despite not having partners, I am in the network of individuals that do green innovations like mine and as time goes, I shall be in a network of green innovators. In the next two years, I see myself managing a waste art museum that could promote green art, create green jobs and enhance green tourism for green economy,” Store said. In an earlier interview, Association of Environmental Jounalists president Mathews Malata applauded such initiatives saying they will go a long way in preserving the environment.