How Kisumu innovator is making shoes and leather jackets from fish skin
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.พ. 2024
- For a long time, fish filleting firms along Lake Victoria, especially in Kisumu county, dumped the waste from fish in the area, leading to environmental pollution and degradation.
Coupled with the stench from the waste, the area along the lake was a nightmare for residents.
One of the residents is Newton Owino, a leather chemist who spent day and night plotting a solution for the fish waste. Leveraging his knowledge on leather chemistry, and with consistent research, Owino came up with the idea of turning the fish waste into meaningful and useful products.
He established a firm where he could collect the waste and turn the fish skin into leather, which he then used to make products such as shoes, jackets, belts and even book covers.
"The main idea was actually to sustainably manage this waste and also to generate income. We didn't just look at it as waste," Owino says.
The process of converting the waste is straightforward. After collecting the waste, Owino pretreats the skin to convert it into a belt and then into leather. He uses natural substances such as papain from papaya fruit.
Owino also dyes the leather to give it an appealing look for his clients.
"Mostly we export our fish leather products to other parts of the world but we have also started penetrating the local market. I would say our fish skin leather is more of exotic, something new amongst us. So it will take some time for it to be adopted fully here," he adds.
Through this initiative, Owino has not managed to clean up the environment around the Lake Victoria area, but also created employment opportunities for the youth and women in Kisumu.
"I want to urge the youth to look around them and see value in things around them. The leather business is very lucrative, but people think it is only for the less fortunate in society. If we tap into this fully, it is something one can do until they lose their eyesight," Owino says.
This are the minds we need to inspire and invest on in this Country
Nice idea, but the final outcome isn't appealing at all. They need to put more work around that.
Nice idea🥰🥰
great work
Good work
❤ awesome congratulations 👏 🎊
Good Job Uncle
It's a good way to conserve the environment. As a vegetarian that's the good side of the innovation.
Great!
Mr Danganya please export this gentleman to turkey..
Great idea but those shoes can scare kids
I imagined smelling fish in the office 😩😅
unaunderstand English ama kuna lugha nyingine
How come the government has not done anything to promote this dude...
Coz those things are ugly. Si wewe uende and promote him
@@vumbisnap spoken like someone who has zero hopes of ever achieving anything in life.
@@lawrencemaweu ok, awesome
... But they're still ugly though!!
Which government ?
@@vumbisnapjust as you are
❤❤❤
Omera owino bwana fungia mimi slippers mbili za omena na bra nyeupi ya mbuta... Eeee. Samawani owino weka shati ya waridi nyeupe ya kamongo.
❤
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 👏
This is a very old story i saw an article about this guy about 10 years ago
Newton
Majina mko nayo kweli
Mimi nilipewa kinyanjui.😅
Zakayo yuko wapi na tax?
izi viatu zinakaa kukuliwa na mbwa zikiachwa nje
I'm all for supporting innovation and entrepreneurship but hapana tusidanganye... Hizo nguo na viatu hazikai poa. Maybe he needs designers or maybe he needs to make the skin more appealing but waah...
That's why he was targeting international customers and not locals due to such kind of down grading by his own country men
@@b.truthful it's not downgrading it's just constructive criticism that's why I suggested designers to make it more appealing. If he can get white people to wear it like that then good for him but PERSONALLY I won't spend my money on something that is not appealing to me
hii kiatu ikiisha unapika unakula na ugali
😂😂😂😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Samaki wako na ngozi
You will be smelling fish