{"id":359035,"date":"2026-03-22T08:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T08:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/359035\/"},"modified":"2026-03-22T08:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T08:42:08","slug":"turning-plastic-waste-into-design-furniture-via-aa-roadwatch-and-stallones-garden-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/359035\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning plastic waste into design furniture \u2013 via AA Roadwatch and Stallone\u2019s garden \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evanna Lyons, a psychotherapist from Meath<\/a>, first went to the sprawling Tanzanian<\/a> capital, Arusha, to work at a mental health clinic in May 2014. The youngest of five, she was born in Kenya but moved as a child to live in Ireland and later to Greenwich in Connecticut<\/a>, \u201ca big change from the countryside in Meath\u201d, she recalls. <\/p>\n

After a degree in sociology, psychology and archaeology in UCD, she trained as a counselling psychotherapist and later as a clinic supervisor. <\/p>\n

Although she says her formative work experience was gardening for Sylvester Stallone in Hawaii, her first job was as an AA Roadwatch traffic news presenter at RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n

In Arusha she met \u2013 and later married \u2013 Alexis Cronin, another Irish expat, from Waterford. An architect, he had come from building mansions for rich clients in London\u2019s Notting Hill to Arusha to build a church for Pallottine priests in the slums of the city\u2019s Esso area. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the complete polar opposite, but it was a great challenge and a new adventure,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Lyons and Cronin were both struck by the amount of plastic waste dumped in Arusha\u2019s streets and rivers and decided to do something about it. So, in 2016 they formed a recycling start-up called Dunia Designs to create something beautiful from plastic waste, with the name coming from the Swahili word for Earth or world.<\/p>\n

Their first product \u2013 made on their veranda \u2013 was a pouffe, stitched together with recycled fabric and stuffed with shredded waste plastic collected on the streets.<\/p>\n

Since then, they have recycled 900 tonnes of plastic waste, and the business has grown to include eye-catching and stylish bespoke furniture, while also providing employment and education. The collections include armchairs, beds, ottomans, sofas, dining tables, benches and mirrors, as well as greenwood decking all made from waste material.<\/p>\n

\"DuniaDunia Designs uses plastic waste to make furniture and decking in Tanzania. Photograph: Dunia Designs <\/p>\n

All its products are made from a material called greenwood, which is waste plastic that is cleaned and shredded before being transformed. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s easy to start a business in Tanzania, but not easy to maintain it,\u201d says Lyons. \u201cThe country has been given a lot of Irish aid but the tax system does not incentivise the private sector. They have a very unfair tax system called the TRA [Tanzanian Revenue Authority] and everyone struggles with it. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou apply for a permit and away you go but, once in, there are a lot of hoops to jump which makes business cumbersome and not straightforward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daily life, however, can be easy for expats, given the division of labour. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou are expected to have house help so there is a lot less daily grind and you are expected to outsource jobs and to be an employer. The cost of labour is quite low and the average income is extremely low. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe pay over the odds for our 35 employees and pay our part-time house staff full-time pay. You end up paying for the education of their children, so you have a responsibility as an expat.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0More than half of daily waste generated in Ireland burned or sent to landfill, EPA saysOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Their own children, aged eight and nine, attend an English international school on a beautiful campus with a swimming pool where there is a great emphasis on the outdoors. \u201cThere are only two other white children in their class so there is a lovely balance and the children love it. That\u2019s a huge reason why we are still here.\u201d <\/p>\n

Their son Malachy speaks fluent Swahili \u201cbut I am still learning\u201d, says Lyons.<\/p>\n

They get back to Ireland twice a year to spend time with their families \u201cbecause my parents are in their 80s and so time with them is precious \u2013 and the kids have loads of cousins\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite the beauty of Arusha and its surroundings and the benefits of lovely weather that means they can live outdoors, \u201cthere isn\u2019t a sense of deep safety. You can\u2019t go out after dark and you need security issues at the door, so freedom has to be managed. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is beautiful and wild, but very managed. I would like our kids, when they are teenagers, to be able to go out, ride their bicycles and visit their friends, to have that freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Lyons and Cronin say running the business is the hardest part \u2013 enjoyable but taxing \u201cand not for the faint hearted\u201d. They are now thinking of establishing a franchise for Dunia Designs. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have developed new ideas around recycling plastic and have gone very far into it with high-end furniture compared to what we thought at the beginning,\u201d Lyons says. \u201cParis Design Week went very well so we are getting close to a franchise model which we will put out to tender.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Plastic colonialism: \u2018A stream of plastic debris, stretching miles, is heading towards us\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

With the franchise, \u201cpeople can take this recipe for recycling wherever you have a plastic crisis \u2013 cut and paste it geographically around the world and make a difference\u201d. <\/p>\n

It means the couple will not need to be in Tanzania and can be shareholders and not employers any more, without that sense of responsibility. <\/p>\n

In a place like Tanzania, where there are no facilities for recycling, \u201cyou can make a difference\u201d as they have proved. duniadesigns.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evanna Lyons, a psychotherapist from Meath, first went to the sprawling Tanzanian capital, Arusha, to work at a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,3751,82],"class_list":["post-359035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-recycling","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}