Turning garbage into masterpieces: The new face of recycling in tourism

For decades now, Arusha has been referred to as the Safari Capital of Africa, the epicentre of Tanzania’s tourism.

That means the city welcomes millions of tourists each year who plan to have a good time.

When a single celebratory wine or liquor turns into two or three, over time, the empty bottles begin to pile up, and hotels can’t get rid of them fast enough.

That was until 2009, when a small local handmade jewellery company located near Arusha Airport started requesting the glass bottles to recycle them.

A strange request at first, but over time, Shanga, which is a social creative enterprise that supports and employs people with disabilities, has transformed piles of empty glass bottles into amazing glassworks.

Among its workforce of glassblowers are the deaf, who have mastered the art of using the scorching hot furnace at their workshop to make jaw-dropping vases and decorative glasswork, among other items that are on display as soon as you walk through their entrance.

The eco-friendly initiative comes on the heels of Arusha and Tanzania’s ambitious goal to attract millions more tourists in the coming years.

That means more drinks and more empty bottles. Most hotels, lodges, and campsites will have to scratch their heads to figure out how to get rid of them.

Not only liquor bottles, but every piece of broken glass they come across in Arusha is recycled, if not by them, then by other companies they ship it to.

They handle more than one hundred tonnes of glass that needs recycling every year.

A mountainous task for a small company, but their noble environmental cause has caught the eyes of well-wishers and people willing to support them.

A French designer, Emmanuel Babled, based in Tanzania, who runs Kukua Ltd, a social enterprise, conceived a collaboration that would help bring in two Venetian masters from Murano.

Andrea Zilio and Luigi Varagnolo would lead a ten-day workshop merging Murano’s centuries-old techniques with Shanga’s inventive use of local and reclaimed materials.

The brown bottles that once stored chilled beers are separated from the clear gin and vodka bottles.

The sorting process comes first before the furnace does the work.

“We separate based on colour; each colour is melted separately, and we only combine them when we mould colourful glasswork,” said Obidiah Mlavi, a staff member at Shanga.

Even the furnaces are powered by recycled engine oil. The oil that is often discarded when drivers do their routine car maintenance, but here it doesn’t go to waste.

Hundreds of safari vehicles that consume a huge amount of engine oil collect their used oil and sell it to Shanga for a considerably lower price.

Once the furnaces are powered up, it is recommended not to turn them off.

At 1100 degrees Celsius, that fire burns for hours on end.

Any use of hydroelectric power that lights homesteads would be of an astronomical cost.

So, only used engine oil during the day and natural gas at night are used to power the workshop.

Watching glassblowers work is a masterful, coordinated choreography that has to be executed with precision.

The searing melted glass is passed around the glassblowers as it’s being swiftly shaped before it cools down.

The final products, which comprise flower vases, glass ornaments, and even wine glasses, are unbelievably works of art.

With the dumped alcohol bottles just a few feet away from the finished recycled glasswork. One would never imagine what is considered trash can transform into.

The inclusion of the disabled workforce among their ranks has been very deliberate. Dina Wilson, the General Manager at Shanga, said that out of all the 67 staff members, most are with some form of disability, physical, sensory, or mental, including some deaf employees and one with autism.

She insists none of their disabilities has a huge impact on their daily production.

Dina is proud of their positive impact on tourism.

The bottles that would have been thrown in Tanzania’s National Parks in the Northern Circuit are now collected and recycled.

“From Serengeti and Ngorongoro to Tarangire, we have helped improve the environment through recycling, with hundreds of tonnes already turned into glasswork,” she said. “We have been doing this since 2009,” she added.

They have also invited students from local primary schools for field trips, taking them around their workshops and teaching them the importance of recycling and how they can play their part to create eco-friendly communities.

The last day of the workshop is winding up, and the Tanzanian-Italian team has set up a display of their glasswork after the ten-day workshop.

The Italian Ambassador, Mr Giuseppe Coppola, accompanied by Prof Maulilio John Kipanyula, Vice Chancellor at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM‑AIST), is present to observe.

The ambassador is passing around, keenly admiring the beautiful product that is a result of a collaboration between Tanzania and his nation.

“Murano is like the Glass Capital of the world, and the Italian embassy supported this project of transferring skills, knowledge and also material, including two electric kilns from Murano to Shanga. We were particularly interested in working with Shanga because they have a very, very social dimension, working with people with disabilities and also recycling materials, creating jobs for people with disabilities and also young people in Arusha,” he said.

Shanga is hoping that with the presence of the Vice-Chancellor, the NM-AIST will, in the near future, join hands in elevating the programme and even training more young Tanzanians.

Selling from ten dollars and above, the glasswork is at an affordable price and would soon be an additional decoration to the homes of some of the tourists who flock to buy them.

The once unbearable environmental pollution that seemed to be a burden to the hotels around Arusha has now turned into an expression of artistry.

The Glass Bridge project that brought together Tanzanian and Italian glassblowers and glass masters has carried a strong social and cultural impact, a symbol of Italy’s solidarity in the wake of recent events that left the Tanzanian tourism industry feeling the pinch.

Art and craftsmanship have been able to unite the two nations and give young creative Tanzanians much-needed skills to expand their imagination with what they can mould out of the recycled bottles.

This workshop was no easy feat; a lot of heavy machinery had to be transported from Murano to Arusha.

“ More than 700 kilograms of tools, moulds, and glass materials have been shipped from Murano to Arusha, including two electric kilns, thanks to the support of NEOS Airline and Air Tanzania.

The resulting works will be presented in Dar es Salaam and Arusha in February 2026 and later at Venice Design Week 2026 in September.