HyaPak Ecotech Limited, founded by Joseph Nguthiru, began life as a final year project by the former Egerton University civil and environmental engineering student. Nguthiru and his classmates experienced the problem of water hyacinths firsthand on a field trip to Lake Naivasha in 2021, when their boat became trapped for five hours. They returned determined to do something about it.
Nguthiru’s bioplastic is made from dried water hyacinth combined with binders and additives, which is then mixed and shaped.
The product, which biodegrades over a few months, was first used as an alternative for plastic packaging. In 2017, Kenya introduced a law banning single-use plastic bags, and in 2020 all single-use plastics were banned from protected areas. The results have been mixed; with homegrown manufacturing banned, there have been reports that single-use plastic bags have been smuggled into Kenya from neighboring countries. “The problem behind (the ban) is that there were no proper alternatives that were produced,” argued Nguthiru.
His product is “killing two birds with one stone,” he believes. “Most single-use plastic products tend to have a lifespan of about 10 minutes after they come out of supermarket shelves. So why not make them biodegradable?”