Marta Uetela’s story

Marta Vânia Uetela’s business BioMec based in Mozambique is the perfect union between social entrepreneurship and sustainability. Using plastic waste from the ocean, BioMec produces high-performance prostheses at an affordable price and with a short development period.

Marta says,

“BioMec believes in climate change, recycling and harmony with nature by re-purposing harmful plastic materials to improve people’s lives.”

Reusing plastic waste – like ghost fishnets and PET bottles – not only helps remove plastic from our oceans, it also allows for competitive pricing. This widens access to prosthetics in Mozambique where 90% of the amputee population can’t obtain them, due to high prices and long wait times. BioMec is striving to change that with the support from our member in Mozambique, ideiaLab.

Marta came up with the idea for her innovative business after a friend of hers had a car accident and she witnessed the difficulties he had in accessing prostheses.  Seeking a green and sustainable solution to this issue led Marta and her co-founder Munir Zaad to create the first prosthetic based on plastic waste collected from the sea. 

BioMec is a community effort and involves the fishing community from their local beach, where they collect and exchange ghost fishnets, creating a circle where the community gains additional income and awareness, and BioMec gets the raw material to work with. 

They are now conducting a pilot with over 700 users in Mozambique and Angola and expect to transform around two tonnes of plastic residuals into prosthetics over the next eight months.