B2B - Recycling Glass into Beautiful African Beads

B2B stands for Bottles-to Beads. Here we recycle (old) discarded glass bottles and turn them into beautiful hand made African glass beads. We use two different techniques to make a variety of bead types. The first is an ancient Ghanaian method and the other uses a traditional Nigerian bead kiln or a modern gas fired equivalent. We have built all three kilns from scratch at our centre.

The Ghanaian technique originally used a mud built beehive kiln fueled by firewood. We initially started at Neema using one of these kilns but have since built a larger brick kiln which is fueled with used engine or hydraulic oil. This oil is normally disposed of by pouring it into holes in the ground so using it to fire a kiln gives us a free recycled fuel and cuts down on wood-fuel use which is a major environmental problem in Tanzania. The glass bottles are either broken into small pieces or powdered and put into clay molds. These are then stacked in the kiln. When red hot, the molds are removed and the hole in the bead is made with a metal spike. The beads are polished before being given to our out-workers to produce the fabulous Neema Crafts beaded African jewellery range.

We are currently looking into the possibility of making our own bio-diesel from used cooking oil to power a smaller version of the present kiln as a cleaner fuel alternative which could also allow us to produce liquid soap!

The two other kilns are new to Neema Crafts and make a much shinier chunkier bead still using old glass bottles. They are simple small chimneys heavily insulated in which glass can be melted and caught on a rod and shaped into the final bead.

The B2B workshop also make fabulous mosaics using recycled glass, some of which grace our restaurant and others are on sale in our African Crafts Shop in Iringa in the form of mosaic mirrors.