About
Takawiri Paper, established in 2016, is a social enterprise that deals with the production of sustainable packaging, stationery, and craft items from Hyacinth paper which is an inspirational and innovative initiative. We use water hyacinth weed removed from the Lake Victoria shores in Kisumu and re-cycled waste paper to make the ecofriendly paper. The products include bookmarks, notebooks, gift/packing boxes, gift/conference bags, files, folders, greeting cards, name tags, business cards, envelopes, and letterheads among others.
The project supports environmental conservation by utilizing a biodegradable raw material that ultimately leads to phasing off single-use plastic and packaging.
Water hyacinth despite being a menace has over the past few years proven to be a useful resource. Hyacinth has been used to make furniture, baskets, produce energy in the form of biogas and briquettes and act as organic fertilizer. The sea weed whose origin is South America found its way into Kenya in the late 1980s.
At Takawiri, we would like to upscale production capacity. Most of the work is done manually and as the business grows, we hope to mechanize the process.
Effect and Solution.
Hyacinth weed has brought challenges in access and navigation in affected water bodies despite the myriad of solutions introduced from clean up efforts to hyacinth eating insects which have all been in futility.
Fishing has been paralyzed due to inaccessibility especially in Lake Victoria, leading to losses in hundreds of millions of shillings in revenue. Being the main economic activity in the communities living around the lake, some have resulted to alternative sources of income. Counties that have been affected by the hyacinth include Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu, Migori, Homabay, Siaya and Busia.
This can be solved by mechanizing the removal of the weed so as to assist fishermen fish easily and increase the fish in the lake.
Paper Making
With the help of fishermen along the shores of Lake Victoria, hyacinth is collected and transported to his premises. The weed is converted into pulp and used to make paper. Michael notes that it takes 8 hours to dry the paper in the sun. Once the paper is dry, we pass it through a calendaring machine which presses the paper for a smooth finish.
Paper drying in the sun
Products
Below are pictures of some of the products made from the Hyacinth paper.
Contact Us:-
Tel:- 0720668591
Email:- [email protected]