A place where all that glitters was once scrap

By Peter Orengo

The expression, ‘kaleidoscope of colour’ finds its place in a small factory near Ongata Rongai that makes magnificent products using recycled glass.

Magical ambience of sculptures, glass mosaics, colourful glassware and jewellery are some of the things that entice a first time visitor to Kitengela Glasses.

The factory leads to niches of busy artisans, all transforming recycled glass and scraps of other materials into beautiful things of art and other uses.

Protective overalls

Tourists admire glassware at the display hall at Kitengela Glasses. [PHOTO: MBUGUA KIBERA/STANDARD]

Everything about this factory is creative, even the way it blends with the savanna grass and acacia trees, giving the area an impressive ingenuity to environmental sensibility.

An inscription at the gate announces, ‘Welcome to Kitengela Glasses. Our magic dome transforming useless glass to new objects of function and art.’

Mr Ephraim Miheso, the production manager says the business, owned by Anselm Croze, an American investor, has been in operation for 15 years now.

Inside a large dome, groups of men in protective overalls with heavy gloves toil and sweat, around roaring furnaces and bubbling melted glass.

The men wield long-handled metal pipes with dexterity and controlled haste.

They sometimes plunge rods, twisting them, into the heart of the fires roaring around them before sitting to twirl and pad the glass into shape, then dunk them in the buckets of cold water next to their workstations.

The workshop sounds like a living thing, with water hissing, fires crackling, and the footsteps of the glassworkers as they wield their long pipes, tipped with glowing bulbs of molten glass, like fiery dreams waiting to be imagined into life.

The fires are extremely hot, the space is not very big, and the glass must be shaped before it cools—which happens very quickly with recycled glass.

"All our raw materials are from our surroundings and they are items rendered useless by others," Miheso says.

They collect or buy used engine oil, shredded papers, empty bottles, broken pieces of glasses, saw dust, old newspapers and animal dung to produce biogas for the furnace.

Out of these materials, Kitengela Glasses produces finished products in the form of beautiful chandeliers, handmade glasses, lampshades, serving bowls, display and cake plates, mosaic materials, wall decorations mirrors and swimming pool blocks.

Mr Miheso adds that different companies are their main customers; they buy glass trophies, which they usually order by specifications.

Broken glass

"We have trained, talented glass molders capable of making nearly anything out of glass. All one has to do is to give specifications," Miheso says.

They market their wares not only in the country and the region, but also outside the region, through the Internet.

We came across barrels of broken glass, metal waste papers and barrels of oil.

Mr Hassan Juma, one of the crafts men working at the plant said after sorting, the glass is melted down and is in the hands of the many talented.

This enthusiasm is demonstrated by hundreds of parked boxes of orders ready to be ferried to the airport and others delivered to the neighbouring country Tanzania, as we came to learn.

In a display hall, barrels of sparking glass, each glowing a different shade or colours are showcased to visiting tourists and institutions.