Markets & Finance

How Nairobi bio-centres reap from human effluence

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Construction of a bio-digester that converts human waste into methane gas, which is then harvested and used as cooking fuel. The process also produces retail-grade fertiliser that is used by the community. Courtesy Photos.

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.

“We now only use charcoal to prepare githeri — which we cook overnight— and ugali. All other meals are cooked at the gas stove,” said Ms Olwande in an interview with the Business Daily.

As countries mark the World Toilet Day today to raise global awareness on the 2.6 billion people who lack access to proper sanitation, Kenya is pioneering the practice of converting human effluence into communal affluence.

Mr Josiah Omotto, the brain behind the latrines dubbed “bio-centres”, says the facilities are a multipronged solution to challenges beyond sanitation.

The centres, where biogas is harvested from human waste and the waste converted into fertiliser host income-generating activities and also act as community information centres.

“We started by tackling a sanitation challenge and ended up with multiple by-products,” says Mr Omotto, the managing trustee at Umande Trust, the firm that pioneered the bio-centres in Kenya.

The first was set up at Kibera’s Laini Saba in 2005 and presently, there are 52 such latrines in Nairobi.

They are strategically located in informal settlements, which are often in dire need of sanitation facilities as they are neither connected to municipal sewer lines nor water supply grids.

Umande Trust builds these sanitation facilities from funds provided by organisations such as Athi Water Services Board, UN Habitat, Unep, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Irish charity Oxfam and foreign missions in Nairobi.

According to the 2009 Kenya Population Census, 13 per cent of households (or 5.6 million Kenyans) have no access to toilets and defecate in the open or dispose human waste in bushes.

The World Bank 2012 Water and Sanitation Programme report says Kenyans spend almost 2.5 days a year finding a private location to defecate; and much longer for women who are obliged to find a hideout for urination as well.

The UN Habitat estimates that only eight out of every ten people living in Nairobi’s urban slums, which constitute 60 per cent of the city’s total population, have access to adequate water and sanitation facilities. Such interventions such as the bio-centres are, therefore, timely.

A typical bio-centre is a two-storeyed building where the toilets and bathrooms are housed on the ground floor while the first floor is used as a community kitchen and for offices to be let out to slum-based organisations.

The second floor is mostly converted into a multipurpose community hall.

The Sh700,000 Kibera School for Girls bio-centre consists of six latrines and two bathrooms, accessed daily by about 400 community members who pay Sh2 per visit. Children use it free of charge.

“This has helped curb the challenge of flying toilets, where people would defecate in bags and throw them away,” says Mr Kepha Ombiara, a user of the facility who resides in Sarangombe village, Kibera.

“In the past, it was very bad. There was human waste thrown everywhere and the smell was also disgusting,” said Mr Ombiara.

At Katwekera village still in Kibera is another sanitation complex dubbed “Tosha Bio Centre”. It is used by an average of 1,000 people, making it one of Nairobi’s busiest toilet and a mega producer of biogas.

Built at a cost of about Sh1.5 million, the facility has 10 toilets on the ground floor where patrons pay Sh5. On the first floor, is a community kitchen from where food vendors prepare their meals using biogas at a cost of Sh10 per food item.

The kitchen’s main customers are Kibera’s street food vendors, mostly women, who sell beans, githeri, milk, boiled maize, sweet potatoes and arrow roots. Due to the highly subsidised cost of cooking, the vendors have much higher profit margins.

Another half of the first floor is rented out as office space at a monthly cost of Sh8,000.

The current occupant is the Kibera Mpira Mtaani (Kimta), an organisation that helps youngsters to make use of their sporting talents.

The second floor of the Tosha Bio Centre is multi-purpose hall used as a church on Sundays, as a tuition centre during weekdays, and is converted into a cinema hall to screen sports, especially the English Premier League and major sporting events such as the Olympics and Fifa World Cup.
“Kibera residents enjoyed the Olympics from this facility,” said Mr Fredrick Amuok, a programme’s officer at Umande Trust.
Another innovative bio-centre is one located in Kichinjio village, Kibera, which is run by Stara Peace Women Organisation.

Feeding programme

The women’s group uses proceeds from the bio-centre to fund a feeding programme at Stara Rescue Centre and School, which has a population of 520 pupils from kindergarten to Standard Eight.

Ms Mariam Abdul, one of the founders of the school, says the group earns a gross income of Sh25,000 from the Stara bio-centre, money that helps complement funds from donors and well-wishers.
“Without the funds from the bio-centre, we would not be able to feed our pupils during weekends and school holidays,” said Ms Abdul, who is in charge of the sanitation programme.

“Most of the pupils are orphans, neglected children, from single parent families and those from extremely poor households who would otherwise not afford any meal,” said Ms Abdul.

Sanitation facility
The group further uses fertiliser from human waste to grow food crops such as sukuma wiki, bananas, tomatoes and other vegetables used to feed the learners.

The Stara sanitation facility also allows Kichinjio residents to take a hot shower, courtesy of the biogas-powered cooker, which boils water for community members at Sh20.

A cold water shower costs Sh10 while toilet usage attracts a fee of Sh5 and comes complete with a sheet of toilet paper.

The first floor of the facility is rented out to Kituo Cha Sheria, a non-governmental organisation that provides legal aid to poor people. The second floor is a hall used as church on Sundays and for community meetings.

The UN-Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water (GLAAS) 2012 report says that Kenya spends 1.11 per cent of its GDP on sanitation projects.

As a result, the World Bank says Kenya loses Sh27 billion annually due to poor sanitation due to time wasted in finding a private area to defecate and resultant medical costs from sanitation-attributable diseases such as diarrhoea.

“Landlords in Kibera do not care about providing toilets. They see it as wasted space where they would otherwise earn rent,” says Bonnie Wanyama, the caretaker at the Stara bio-centre.
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