The innovation of Nkembe Martin is reportedly cost-effective and ecologically beneficial.

Plastic papers that litter our streets have until now posed as a serious threat to environmental protection. Environmental experts have been burning night candles devising strategies to get rid of them.  Curiously, the “waste” is proving a raw material for pavement tiles badly needed by our urban developers to give our cities a facelift.

This is an innovation of an Edea-based Common Initiative Group, GIC Bio, through its promoter, Mambe Nkembe Martin. The product is an attraction at the handicrafts (SIARC) exhibition village.  He has tiles that weigh up to 20 kg. He says to fabricate a square metre of the tiles, comprising 15 pieces, he takes 606 kg of waste papers. “The State has a lot to gain from this. We usually talk of billions of FCFA when it comes to tarring a road in our country today. What we are telling the State is that in those billions, it should give us FCFA 30 million. With it, we can fabricate 90,000 tiles and this is synonymous with cleaning our streets of two tonnes of plastic papers.”

This, he said, will not only provide the State with solid tiles needed for sustainable road infrastructure, clean the streets of waste but also create employment opportunities for many citizens. “The production chain is very long and would need so many people when our business grows. We will also pay taxes to the State”. While waiting, Mr Mambe Nkembe said people are already interested in the product and the take home price for a square metre of the tiles is FCFA 5.500.