Community-Based energy briquette production from urban organic waste at Kahawa Soweto informal settlement, Nairobi

Solid waste management presents a major challenge for many municipal authorities in Sub-Saharan African cities, where rapid growth, social and cultural change, widespread poverty, inadequate and weak local enforcement capacity and limited financial resources all contribute to environmental degradation and waste disposal challenges. Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, generates over 2000 tonnes of solid waste daily and only 40% is collected and disposed. The city experiences a high level of poverty and unemployment among the poor who constitute over 60% of the population. Many youths living in the informal settlements are highly affected by lack of jobs in the formal sector and to address their plight, they have come up with initiatives to address poverty and unemployment as well as environmental burdens and insecurity in their neighborhoods through recycling waste resources. One major problem that the urban poor in cities of Sub-Saharan Africa have to contend with is inaccessibility of affordable cooking fuel, and it has been shown from numerous studies that the majority of people depend on charcoal for cooking. The residents of Kahawa Soweto village are no exception to this challenge and so Soweto Youth in Action (SOYIA) youth group, in collaboration with Urban Harvest and Kenya Green Towns Partnership Association (Green Towns), developed an action research initiative on making fuel briquettes from urban solid waste generated from the neighborhood and environs with the objective of generating income and providing employment while contributing to environmental management. In the course of the project TERRA NUOVA, the private sector and the University of Nairobi joined the partnership to provide specified technical expertise. This action research project was the follow-up to a larger study on solid waste management carried out in 2003-2004 by Urban Harvest and partners where SOYIA youth group was one of the CBOs that played a key role to the success of that project.

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