Launch of Kenya’s Recycled-Plastic Flipflopi Dhow
On 15 September 2018, the Flipflopi dhow entered the water at Lamu, Kenya. Local boatbuilding skills turned coastal plastic waste into a working sailing craft and a highly visible argument for keeping materials in use.
A problem on the shoreline
Plastic washed onto Kenyan beaches supplied both the problem and the raw material for the Flipflopi project. Founder Ben Morison wanted an object that could communicate the issue without remaining an abstract warning. A dhow offered a familiar shape along the East African coast, where sailing craft have long connected communities. UN Environment’s launch report describes the project as an effort to change how people understood the usefulness of discarded plastic.
The launch at Lamu
The nine-metre boat was launched on 15 September 2018. Boatbuilder Ali Skanda and his collaborators combined coastal craft knowledge with techniques for reprocessing plastic into construction material. Bright flip-flop pieces contributed its distinctive exterior. The launch-day press release records the occasion and its environmental purpose. This was a working prototype entering the sea, rather than a conventional wooden boat merely carrying a load of rubbish for display.
Traditional form, different material
The central innovation lay in replacing familiar boatbuilding material with recycled plastic components while retaining the recognisable dhow form. The project’s boatbuilding account describes its low-tech approach and the plastic collected from Kenyan shorelines. Reuse acquired a practical test: a structural material had to perform in a real craft. The resulting boat linked the skills of builders with an environmental campaign, rather than presenting recycling as a process restricted to distant specialist factories.
What the boat could demonstrate
A single dhow could not remove marine plastic pollution by itself. Its value was demonstrative and communicative: it made discarded material visible in a durable, useful object and carried that message to other communities. Later voyages and training programmes extended the project beyond the launch, but those achievements belong to subsequent stages. Here the date marks the original craft’s entry into the water. The accompanying shore scene is an interpretive illustration, not a documentary photograph of the launch or its participants.
Jambo Bwana – Soul Reggae Mix
Them Mushrooms; 2026 remix released by DJ Central
This 2026 reworking of Them Mushrooms’ Kenyan classic links the soundtrack to the dhow’s Kenyan coastal setting. It is a later cultural pairing, not audio from the 2018 launch.
Listen on SoundCloud ↗Follow the evidence.
- UN Environment: Report of the 15 September launch ↗
- The Flipflopi: Boatbuilding and the original dhow ↗
- UN Environment: Launch-day press release ↗
- Jambo Bwana Soul Reggae Mix: Release details ↗
AI-assisted writing, with institutional and primary sources. Illustration is a reconstruction, not an archival photograph. Published October 31, 2026; updated October 31, 2026. Our approach
