Recycling project awes in Uganda

LUZIRA, Uganda — Flowering plants rise as if by magic from Lake Victoria onto a wooden boat, giving it a leafy ambiance that enchants many visitors.

The initial attraction becomes more compelling when tourists to Uganda learn that the greenery emerges from an innovative recycling project that uses thousands of dirt-encrusted plastic bottles to anchor the boat.

Former tour guide James Kateeba started building the boat in 2017 in response to the tons of plastic waste he saw in the lake after heavy rains. He realized the vessel could serve as an example of a sustainable business on the shores of Lake Victoria: a floating restaurant and bar that could be unmoored to drift for pleasure.

Many who come to relax here in Luzira, a lakeside suburb of Uganda’s capital, Kampala, know nothing of the boat’s backstory. Kateeba insists it’s first and foremost “a conservation effort,” one man’s attempt to protect one of Africa’s great lakes from degradation.

Lake Victoria is the world’s second-largest freshwater lake and spans three countries. Yet it is plagued by runoff waste and other pollution, sand mining and a decline in water levels due in part to climate change.

Layers of plastic waste float near some beaches during the rainy season, a visible sign of the pollution that’s a worry for fishing communities heavily dependent on the lake.

“The fact that we had a problem of pollution as a country … I decided to design something out of the ordinary,” Kateeba said, surveying the lake horizon tinged with a green substance that indicates contaminants from a nearby brewery.