Today’s beautiful thing is maybe the best news I’ve ever heard. Every time I think about it, I cry.

A brilliant young Kenyan woman has come up with a planet-saving idea. When Nzambi Matee realized that discarded plastics were filling not just her home city but also the rest of the planet, she started a company called Gjenge Makers. The company turns plastic waste into sustainable construction materials (like bricks and pavers) which are said to be stronger, cheaper, and lighter weight than concrete. Every day, her company turns out more than 1,500 brick that can be used in building roads and low-cost housing.

“We live in a very consumer-oriented world. We’re just all about consumption and consumption and consumption We need to stop and realize what are the effects and the byproducts of our consumptious lifestyle. The problem of plastic is it takes long to disintegrate… Using my background in material science and engineering, I was like how can we figure out a way where we can convert this plastic into something else?”

The young woman devised a system whereby plastics are shredded, then melted down and (manually!) forced into rectangular molds and compressed. Once cooled and hand-smoothed, they form nearly-unbreakable bricks, perfect for construction. Matee’s process is still too slow and hands-on to make a big difference, but I’m absolutely certain that if a few large companies with sufficient manufacturing resources automated the process, the planet’s plastics problem could be greatly reduced.

You can follow Gjenge Makers on their website and on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.