Praia Azul is Associação Repensar’s programme to clean Maputo’s beachfront and collect the waste that threatens its coastline. Mozambikes is helping make that work easier and more efficient.

For years, Associação Repensar, led by environmental activist Carlos Serra, has been working to keep Maputo’s beaches clean and to raise awareness about the growing problem of waste in the city and along its coastline. Their work has never been about waiting for someone else to solve the problem. It has been about going to the beach, collecting the waste, raising awareness and coming back again and again. That persistence, over many years, is at the heart of what Praia Azul is about.

The challenge is that collecting waste is only part of the job. Once it has been gathered, it still needs to be moved. This is where Mozambikes saw an opportunity to help. Together with Associação Repensar, the Port of Maputo and the Maputo Municipality, we developed a bicycle trailer designed specifically to transport the waste and materials collected during beach-cleaning activities.

The trailer, funded by the Port of Maputo, attaches to a bicycle and gives the team greater capacity to move what they collect. When it is detached, it becomes a manual trolley, making it possible to continue moving materials without the bicycle. The same concept can also be used beyond beach cleaning, including transporting agricultural products from farms to markets.

For decades, Carlos Serra and the Associação Repensar team have been on Maputo’s beaches, collecting waste and raising awareness about the importance of protecting the coastline. Their commitment to this work has remained constant, even when the resources available to them have been limited. Praia Azul builds on that experience and determination, bringing together the people, partners and practical solutions needed to keep the work moving.

For Mozambikes, our contribution is simple: to help Repensar do more of what they already do. The bicycle trailer gives the team a practical way to collect and transport larger quantities of waste from the beachfront, while also providing a solution that can be used for other community needs. It is a small intervention designed around a much bigger effort that has been taking place for years.

Praia Azul is ultimately about supporting a commitment that already exists: keeping Maputo’s beaches cleaner, protecting the environment and making it possible for the people doing this work to go further.