On a recent visit to some of the poorest parts of Kenya, I was very surprised to see how the people in this part of Africa were forced to live with nearly every object in their lives being recycled. From the furniture that adorned their living space, to the strips of crude plastic that was used to patch up the roof of their dwelling and keep the rain out.

At the time, I have to admit, I was quite shocked with the stark poverty that I saw here. But soon after, my mind started to turn to the fact that these people were actually more clever than westerners may first credit them. They were forced to live in such an industrious manner and when you see them reusing everything from car parts to gypsum recycling, you start to think just how wasteful we are in the west.

We all know how bad it is for the environment, when we insist on using materials of any nature for a few years, then get fed up with them and replace for new. But if we really thought about this, the chances are that we could make do with objects and items for a lot longer than we do at the moment.

The population on this planet is exploding, there are more and more mouths to feed and people to house and sooner or later, even the most prosperous countries are going to be forced to spare far more thought to the way in which they live.