Many are times when certain people in communities are ignored in decision making processes and yet expected to implement the outcome. Never the less people living in Bwaise slums, Kawempe Division Kampala district have decided to stop lamenting and come up with their own by-laws and enforce them. One of the issues they have decided to act upon is the Solid waste management in their community thus Kimwanyi Model. The Model has four major componentsthe one of which is,
“Development of environmental friendly businesses.”
The above component addresses the problems of unemployment, poor sanitation, deforestation to which charcoal burning has contributed a lot in the past years.The youth in Bwaise slums with the help of MAWDA, Actionaid Uganda have come up with a charcoal producing firm using the solid waste in their community; the honey comb and briquette Charcoal, here goes the process:
Collect all garbage in the area exclude plastics and metal, dry and burn it to char .This is done using a char drum to exclude oxygen in the burning process. The char is grinded and stuck together using starch and clay soil. The mixture is then put in the molding machine to produce either honey comb or briquette charcoal.
All is done;
There you go with a honey comb that can burn for at least eight hours environmental friendly yet cost only 1,500 Ushs
Or briquette charcoal at 450 Ushs for 3pieces, as compared to charcoal from tree burning that costs 5,000 Ushs in 8 hours and a number of trees.
The firm also produces charcoal stoves designed for the honey comb charcoal at cost of 50,000 Ushs. It’s at this point that I am meant to understand the demand is higher than the supply. This is because of the manual system used as opposed to the mechanical but also that there are not so many producers. From what is seen to be garbage and useless,
Okurut John and other youth from Bwaise slums are earning a living yet protecting the environment.
