Turning scrap into treasure

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Living up to this idiom, a group of artists are using their passion and artful skills to recreate ordinary household wastes into decorations and other creative uses.

Introducing Leonard Tebegetu, director of the design build business called Kreative Kanaka.

Established in 2016, the local business transforms scrap metals and other household items like empty wine bottles, cans, copper wire and kitchen utensils into decorations and shopping trolleys into rocking chairs.

“Like steel and metal are main materials we work with because if we look around, people have old chairs they throw away. We find ways to recreate these scrap metals,” said Tebegetu.

Kreative Kanaka’s next project is to build the walls of their studio and workshop using PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles and cans.

But that’s not all. They have embarked on creating self-irrigating pots out of coke bottles which are cost and user friendly, ideal for fruit and vegetable growers to use.

“You know how people grow food and greens on the hillside, their biggest problem is creating nurseries so we came up with the idea to do nurseries just around their houses, especially for seedlings like Chinese cabbages which depend on water,” explained Tebegetu.

He said while the business generates some form of income, it has been established out of passion, with the hope of inspiring people to reuse, reduce and recycle waste.

(Picture: Kreative Kanaka FB page)

Author: 
Carolyn Ure