Garbage-Burning Oven Helps Clean Up and Power Kenyan Slum
by Eliza Barclay, Nomad on 11. 1.07
The Christian Science Monitor has a piece out of Nairobi on a garbage-burning oven in the notorious slum of Kibera that aims to preserve the country's forests, which are swiftly being cleared to provide wood and charcoal for cooking, while finding a way to utilize trash for energy. If successful, Monitor says, the pilot project could be a model for megacities and the waste they create.
The oven has a superheated steel plate inside an incinerator box to vaporize drops of water. The oxygen released then helps burn discarded "sump" oil from vehicles – a pollutant in the slums – pushing up the temperature. The target is for the cooker to consume half a ton of waste every day once it has finished trials in about a month.
The project is the first of its kind, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which provided $10,000 for the launch.
"We have already seen a difference in the area we are targeting," says Pauline Nyota, of the Umande Trust, a group that works in slums to improve sanitation and leads the project. "The drainage ditches are much cleaner – just wastewater when before they were clogged with rubbish." Photo credit: Christian Science Monitor ::Via The Christian Science Monitor
I find this interesting because when my sister was in the peace corps, her goal was to built more fuel efficient stoves that polluted less.
http://www.gordonphoto.net
Africa is trying many different ways to produce energy that is both environmentally friendly and inexpensive. I saw a presentation on solar cooking at the Green Festival where they said that solar heat capturing pots can cook many pounds of food for impoverished villages in Africa. They are brining these devices to the people for free. Pretty cool. Another African energy link below...
http://greenpieceblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/african-green-energy.html
does the plant just release all its smoke into the air..? or does it get scrubbed before it's released into the atmosphere... cuz it wouldn't be a very smart plan otherwise...
They admit the smoke produced is toxic....this type of technology emits dioxins and heavy metals. Over population is the main problem, this only prolongs the agony.
Burning garbage does not clean up.
It produces and spreads toxic emissions.
It also waste resources that could be recycled and reused.
A Zero Waste policy would be better in the long term than incinerators and other Waste-Of-Energy snakeoil gimmicks.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Just wanted to note that the particular technology used in this oven produces temperatures of up to 930 degrees F., enough to burn many of the hazardous pollutants so very few are emitted into the air.
Cheers,
Eliza
well. i have a question. does burning trash really help air pollution? or does it make the air pollution worse??? well. answer back please...
thank you.
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Sarah-Beth
from Ohio.