Our origins

One morning in 2015, our founder, Ben Morison went to the beach for a swim, and thought there was rather a lot of plastic on it. In his words:

“I remember the morning clearly... it was flip-flops and plastic bottles mainly. I took my phone out and started taking photos of it. But what for I thought?... rather than a (pretty boring) Instagram post... why not pick it all up, glue it together and sail it around our ocean so people can see how badly this trash was affecting us.

Why did I want to act? All my professional life has been spent organising holidays to Africa and seeing the plastic on the beach that morning I realised that this natural environment that had given me everything – was under threat. If I of all people didn’t do something about it, then really what hope is there. So the Flipflopi started. I met Ali Skanda in Lamu, then Dipesh Pabari, and the three of us, each with a shared vision of a cleaner environment for our children, decided to build Flipflopi.”

Boatbuild 

In 2018 on the coast of Kenya, using only local knowhow and resources, we built the world’s first 100% recycled plastic sailing boat. The plastic we used came from beach clean ups – during which we collected a great number of flipflops. We used 30,000 flipflops to create a colourful patchwork cover for the boat – and so decided to name her ‘Flipflopi’.

She is a lateen rigged traditional Swahili dhow measuring 10 metres and weighing 7 tonnes.

Since Flipflopi Ndogo, we’ve built more boats and a line of 40+ heritage and furniture products.

Expeditions 

In January 2019, the Kenyan minister of Environment alongside local activists and the hundreds of community members who helped build our boat waved us goodbye as we set sail to Zanzibar, Tanzania on our maiden voyage. There, we were welcomed by government officials, global leaders and local communities who were amazed to witness our innovation and understand the sheer scale of plastic pollution. 

We had ignited a plastic revolution. 

A few weeks later, the Tanzanian government strengthened their single-use plastic ban and dozens of businesses joined our call to reduce single-use plastics. 

We have since sailed over 2,500km across 3 countries and the Lamu Archipelago, engaging people, conducting research and setting the foundation for plastic pollution free East Africa. 

Today

From outsourcing our first planks to an external recycler to building a recycling facility with a 15 ton monthly capacity, innovating boats for public use, and training the next generation of circular economy innovators we are now serving 60% of the population we operate in and have kickstarted projects in Tanzania and Uganda.

Explore our work below.