Chimfwembe Mutale is a young climate justice actor from Zambia. He is among the youths who attended the first cohort of the Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice, an initiative of PACJA, in 2021.He started an NGO (Yaaka Investment Limited) in 2015 while he was in the University with an aim of putting climate change related waste problems into solutions, which was later strengthened in the summer school Training, resulting to a successful waste management solutions.
He says that summer school helped him know how he can bring real solutions to his community through the mentorship and guidance given during the training. The knowledge he acquired has helped him to overcome any barriers and challenges he faces when dealing with issues in climate change and waste management sectors.
Over the years, Zambia has faced a significant e-waste management problem due to lack of proper infrastructure, recycling facilities and regulations leading to improper disposal of electronic waste, often ending up in landfills or being illegally exported to neighboring countries.
To address this problem, Chimfwembe, with the desire to promote a safe and clean environment, launched an electronic waste recycling plant which will be processing e-waste at 1 ton per hour combating 5 tons per processing. It can manage 50,000 tons of e-waste annually combating 250,000 CO2 yearly. This will help solve the problem of open air burning to reduce flue gas emission into the atmosphere.
He also established a solar portable mobile charge booth which will provide electricity to rural parts of Zambia with no or limited access to grid electricity for charging of mobile devices.
Based on the skills of partnership and collaboration he acquired from summer school, he partnered with CIB Engineering Services Limited to introduce “Green Construction”, a way of reducing carbon emissions from the waste management sector. By combining Yaaka carbon capture and incinerator system technology, the aim was to transform concrete produced for construction into a carbon sink.
This innovation has been a success since 70% of the waste has been reduced and 500kgs of paper and plastic have been processed and sold to recycling companies. He has won several awards like Best fast mover start up global innovation and Best Youth waste management innovation.
Although there has been success in the implementation of this innovation, there have been several challenges that have hindered 100% implementation. Financial constraint has been the most challenging factor in the organization whereby the grants received from UNDP are not enough to the process. Also, the process of getting licenses is extremely bureaucratic and expensive as Chimfwembe claims.
Possible solutions to these problems are currently being found so that these young climate defenders can succeed in giving their communities the best and accomplish the mission of a green, clean and safe environment.
