Marta Uetela is a young Mozambican with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and stands out in the world of sustainable entrepreneurship. A BioMec is a start-up that develops a variety of prosthetics using recycled material and has already been distinguished in a worldwide competition.

It all started from the need to help a former college classmate who had difficulty getting around. "Yes, a colleague of mine suffered a car accident and had immense difficulties in accessing prosthetics. Either because of the price, or the time it took to build, or even because of the appearance of the prosthesis itself."says Marta Uetela, founder of BioMec, a start-up that develops a variety of prosthetics using recycled material (fishing nets and plastic containers).

And it was in one of those campaigns to collect garbage (plastic bottles and nets) on the beach of the Costa do Sol that the idea came. "You know, in the middle of one of these activities we realized that we were collecting all this material (garbage) and then where does it end up? asked the young entrepreneur. "And there came this idea that we can reuse this material and make prosthetics is not, says the young woman. And that's how the garbage was transformed into a precious good for people who have amputation problems... and from there "we never stopped", says the young woman who changed mechanics for social entrepreneurship.

At the beginning BioMec had only three people. "Today we already have a team of 15 people from various training areas. In terms of production level, "we expect that by the end of next month the production number will reach 500 prostheses". BioMec has slowly become a reference in the production of prosthetics and has been working with some civil society organizations. "After a little research, we found that 90% of the amputee population in Mozambique does not have access to prosthetics." "Our goal is to bring prosthetics to a greater number of people at an affordable price," he says.

The collection and production

The production of prostheses follows several steps from the collection (which begins at sea) to the production itself. "After the collection, a selection is made, because they have to be different types of plastics," explains the young entrepreneur.

After the selection is followed by a rigorous cleaning of the material (plastics and nets). After this, the bottles and nets go through a machine that transforms "this material into small fragments," explains the entrepreneur. And she goes on: "Yes, there is also another process that transforms this material into filaments, and after that it is a whole process of injection molding and 3D technology and finally we have access to this," she says pointing to one of the prostheses on her table.

So far the raw material is acquired free of charge. And the production cost is around one thousand meticais. "This allows us to have the product on the market at a very competitive price," he adds. "We are talking about a product that is available in the market at a final price of 3800 meticais. "There is no comparison possible with the regular process of prosthetics that, for example, involve superplastics... and the prices reach 25 thousand meticais and even more," he says.

Unlike the conventional process (which takes four days or more), the total production of a prosthesis at BioMec takes 24 hours. "Of course it also depends on the level of amputation, but the most we have ever taken was 24 hours to produce a prosthesis," clarifies the entrepreneur.

In terms of equipment BioMec has so far invested about 50 thousand dollars. The numbers are there, but of course, it didn't start out that way. "Our first, semi-industrial production line was about 10 thousand euros," he reveals to MZNews. And time has brought new results. "Currently we have the business model that is more customer-facing and for some NGOs," she says, ′orgulously′. If a year ago the production capacity was one prosthesis a day, today, with more machines (all acquired abroad), this has increased to four.

Last year BioMec was considered the third best creative start-up in Africa and entered the global Top 10 in ClimateLaunchPadthe largest global green business competition, after participating in an action developed by ideaLab.

"I have always been passionate about the environment, which eventually led to my involvement with some organizations focused on environmental education and zero waste."

On a personal level "BioMec has helped me to grow... it has opened doors for me to various opportunities, but also the development itself, because it is not very common in Mozambique to create a medical product from scratch," he confesses.

And in the medium to long term "we want to be a reference in the production of medical products, but in a sustainable way". Willingness and dedication are not lacking.