In brief
Since 2012, Chako Zanzibar has collected more than five million discarded bottles, turning them into drinkware, lamps, and other items while training 400 locals. Mwanamkuu Mussa, a 52‑year‑old mother of four, has turned bottle‑upcycling into a livelihood that covers her children's education and healthcare, and she now trains new artisans. The initiative showcases how waste management can dovetail with gender‑inclusive economic empowerment, though questions remain about the enterprise's long‑term sustainability and scalability.
In the low‑lying islets of Zanzibar, a woman named Mwanamkuu Mussa, 52, has found a way to turn the islands’ waste into wealth. After a career as a nursery school teacher, Mussa joined Chako Zanzibar in 2021, a social enterprise that collects discarded glass bottles from the region’s thriving tourism sector and upcycles them into drinking glasses, vases, lamps and other items for sale to hotel guests and other tourists. The work has enabled her to pay for her children’s school fees, cover medical costs and even open her own DVD library.
Mwanamkuu Mussa says that her new livelihood is more than a paycheck; it is a path to independence. “Working at Chako has helped me become an independent woman,” she said, a statement that exemplifies the broader mission of the enterprise.
Chako Zanzibar, short for *Chako*, began in 2012 when Dutch entrepreneur Anneloes Roelandschap and her partner observed the dual nature of the island’s growing tourism industry: the jobs it created and the waste it generated. After opening a hotel in Stone Town in 2008, the pair realized that the local economy did not reap the benefits equally, and they founded Chako to address both human and environmental needs.
The company’s model is simple: hospitality venues in Zanzibar hand over inadvertently discarded bottles and plastic, Chako cleans and processes the materials, and then crafts them into useful products. Tourists visiting the island can now purchase souvenirs that carry a reminder of Zanzibar while supporting local livelihoods.
According to Roelandschap, the enterprise has prevented more than five million bottles from ending up in landfills and has trained more than 400 local people—predominantly women—who now produce the finished goods. For many, including Mussa, the program offers practical skills and the autonomy to decide their families’ futures. The work not only remedies the island’s waste problem but also empowers a traditionally marginalized demographic.
In the words of the enterprise’s founder, Chako’s strategy “is to bring together the tourism industry’s waste stream and the local workforce, turning refuse into products and opportunity.” The company reports that the beverages’ recyclables are turned into “drinking glasses, vases, lamps and decorative items” sold back through hotels and resorts.
Beyond the counting of bottles and the training of staff, the social impact of Chako can be felt in the community. Mussa, for instance, has used her income to cover her children’s school fees and medical expenses, speaking to the enterprise’s role as a safety net for families.
Yet the enterprise’s sustainability poses open questions for stakeholders. How will the growth of tourism, which often brings increased waste, affect Chako’s processing capacity? Will the economic gains for women grow enough to justify expanding the program, or will challenges such as supply chain disruptions, raw material costs, and market fluctuations threaten its continuity?
The regional cost‑benefit analysis remains under discussion. While Chako has shown that collecting discarded bottles can become a profitable business that supports local communities, the long‑term viability of scaling that model—and ensuring that more women can transition from marginalization to economic independence—has yet to be fully examined.
In the short term, Chako’s influence is evident in the hundreds of women who have trained and the families that have benefited. Mussa’s own goals—building a permanent home for her family—illustrate the broader promise of such initiatives. “I hope to build a house for my family,” Mussa noted, emphasizing that the enterprise’s empowerment reaches beyond immediate income to include aspirations for stable, long‑term living conditions.
As Zanzibar’s tourism continues to rebound after years of disruption, Chako’s mutticated model of waste collection, upcycling, and local empowerment could serve as a template for similar island societies grappling with environmental and economic concerns. The outcomes of such an enterprise—balancing profitability with community uplift—remain a subject of ongoing investigation and discussion among local leaders and international observers alike.
