How Nairobi bio-centres reap from human effluence

There is nothing adequate on the face of the round-shaped latrine at the Kibera School for Girls, located in the heart of Africa’s second largest urban slum, to reveal that the sanitation facility is the school’s source of cooking fuel.

Only a keen eye can track the green plastic pipe that runs from the lavatory to the jumbo two-plate cooker in the kitchen a few metres away. The pipe supplies biogas that is used to cook for the school’s 100 pupils.

Since August 2010 when the institution began using biogas from the latrine, the head teacher says the school makes monthly savings of about Sh30,000, which was initially incurred to buy fuels such as firewood and charcoal.

“The biogas has greatly cut down our fuel costs. We used to consume a sack of charcoal every day,” said Ms Anne Olwande, the headmistress at the school.

source:businessdaily