How garbage in Kenya helps adults and children

Tons of garbage are getting washed up on the beaches of Kenya (Africa). Old flip-flop slippers are a big part of this mass of trash. See how useful the trash can be!

A small company called Ocean Sole from Nairobi (Capital of Kenya) decided to take all the washed up flip-flop slippers and recycle them! A total of 400.000 kilograms of rubber waste is getting recycled a year.

They make toys for kids, individual gifts, big sculptures useful things (door-stoppers, pens, notebooks, …) and a lot more out of them. This is a good solution to reduce the pollution of the beaches and it also can satisfy some kids. !

The flip-flops are picked up on the Kenyan beaches and then washed and sorted by colors. The flip-flop slippers will be cut, glued or shaped in different products. For example a key-chain or a small elephant. Also big giraffes or other big animals are being manufactured. See

Each flip-flop product has a small story. Caused by currents the slippers probably came from Indonesia or further. Now don’t throw your old flip-flop slippers into the ocean and hope you’ll get them back as a little lion, but maybe take a look at the nice products they already made.

A custom whale shark made of used flip-flop sandals

four different iPod cases made of used flip-flop sandals

a pen top elephant made of used flip-flop sandals

A magentic whale made of used flip-flop sandals

A small lion made of used flip-flop sandals

A Keyring made of used flip-flop sandals

A hairband made of used flip-flop sandals

A Giraffe made of used flip-flop sandals

A flip flap penguin made of used flip-flop sandals

A door stopper elephant made of used flip-flop sandals

a small turtle made of used flip-flop sandals

3 Juggling Balls made of used flip-flop sandals

The whole story around this company can be found here: Ocean Sole Story

Ocean Sole on Facebook

Images by: ocean-sole.com & Emilian Robert Vicol – flickr.com (CC-BY-2.0)