In brief
In Zanzibar’s Stone Town, the Chako social enterprise, founded by Dutch entrepreneur Anneloes Roelandschap, collects discarded glass from hotels and rescues them from landfills. Local women such as Mwanamkuu Mussa have built new livelihoods, funded schooling and health care, and are pursuing homes of their own. Chako’s model links environmental stewardship with economic empowerment for Zanzibar’s women.
In Stone Town, Zanzibar, a 52‑year‑old mother of four has turned the remnants of tourist waste into a means of survival and hope. Mwanamkuu Mussa, who once taught at a nursery school, began working for the Chako Zanzibar social enterprise in 2021 after a hotel owner called her to join a project that uses discarded glass bottles as raw material.
Chako was created in 2012 by Dutch entrepreneur Anneloes Roelandschap and her partner, after they opened a hotel in 2008 and observed the growing amount of waste that the tourism industry produced. The couple founded the enterprise to clean that waste, turn it into new products, and at the same time give local people jobs that would bring them out of poverty.
Today Chako collects more than five million bottles each year from hotels and resorts around Zanzibar, cleans and processes them, and fashions them into drinking glasses, vases, lamps, and decorative items that tourists can buy as souvenirs. The enterprise has trained over 400 local people in 2026, according to Roelandschap, and sold the finished goods back to the industry.
Community Impact
For women like Mussa, Chako offers more than a paycheck. She now uses her income to fund her children’s school fees, cover medical expenses, and run a small DVD library that gives local children access to educational media. She said,
Working at Chako has helped me become an independent woman.
Mussa’s story is echoed across the island. Women who have been trained in glass upcycling now help collect the bottles, clean them, and keep the workspaces organized, creating a lattice of support that extends beyond the workshop. The skills they learn allow them to claim agency over their families’ future, who traditionally had limited access to employment.
Roelandschap highlights that Chako’s dual emphasis on environmental clean‑up and community empowerment is its core mission. She says, “Since its establishment, Chako has prevented more than five million bottles from ending up in Zanzibar’s landfills and has trained more than 400 local people.” The numbers underscore a business model that balances profit with social impact.
The revenue generated has enabled Mussa to dream beyond her current modest means: she aims to build a house for her family. In the meantime, she remains a trainer, mentoring newer entrants and ensuring that the enterprise’s values—sustainability, solidarity, and self‑reliance—are passed on.
Chako’s reach stretches not only into the marketplace but also into cultural memory. Tourists who purchase a glass product or a lamp take home a tangible reminder of Zanzibar, while indirectly supporting an initiative that preserves the islands’ ecology. For the community, it is a reminder that waste can be transformed into opportunity.
Globally, the case of Zanzibar’s bottle‑upcycling is one of many emerging approaches that look to rescue abandoned plastic and glass from dumping grounds and give them a second life. In an era when both tourism and environmental fragility continue to rise, Chako offers a template that marries ecological benefits with socioeconomic progress.
For Mussa, the bottles represent a family’s future: they fund school fees, medical bills, and a quest for a home. Her work at Chako is a testament to resilience, and the enterprise is an example of how a small community can turn discarded waste into wealth and independence for women across the Indian Ocean island.