Students at the school are doing well. One of St Jude's high school students Edgar Edmund Tarimo recently won an international competition with bricks he is making by recycling plastic bags. Here is a video to his story. He won the Children's Climate Prize in Sweden!
"With a minimum of resources, Edgar has shown great entrepreneurship in the creation of Green Venture Recycles. With astounding knowledge and a marvel of creativity he has shown how plastic bags can be transformed into durable building blocks through a cheap and sustainable process. The jury is full of admiration of his solutions and see great potential for scaling up and further developing his methods. With his invention, Edgar has made a great contribution locally in his area, and in the long run an admiring effort also for the environment and climate on a global scale."
Organization: Green Venture Recycles
Name: Edgar Edmund Tarimo
Two years ago Edgar started his own company called Green Venture Recycles. It turns plastic waste into cheap and affordable building products such as paving blocks. He has recycled more than 1.2 million plastic bags which could have gone to affect the environment. He has educated more than 4000 students through environmental campaigns in schools. Edgar created a machine that convert waste plastics into paving blocks, roof tiles, bricks, and other useful products. However, melting plastics create toxic gases: dioxin and furan, so he also created a filter to trap the gases and make melting and upcycle of the rescued plastic a more sustainable process. He has employed over 50 people who have now collected more than 20,000 kg of plastic bags, which he has used to produce building materials for construction sites. After seeing how plastics have become a major environmental problem combined with seeing the rains and floods destroying houses because of poor foundations and poor building materials, he was inspired to solve this problem by turning adversity into opportunity.