Community Cooker in Kibera

The Kibera slum outside Nairobi, Kenya, does not have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease. Now a Kenyan architect, Jim Archer, has built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands.

After nine years of development, the prototype “Community Cooker” is close to being rolled out in overcrowded refugee camps as well as slums around the country.

Behind a black-painted corrugated iron cooking area, rubbish collected by local youths dries on racks before being pushed into the furnace. Technicians have spent three years modifying the firebox to produce enough heat to destroy toxins in the rubbish, particularly plastics. The stove reaches around 650° C at present and the aim is 1000° C, but UNEP who provided funding is happy that the prototype has proven rubbish can be turned into energy.

The Red Cross is looking at taking these stoves countrywide. They hope to build at least a 100 over the next five years, depending on donor funding.

The Kibera stove cost about $10,000 to build as a prototype but the designers estimate each would cost $5-6,000 once produced in larger numbers. This compares with $50 million for industrial incinerators in Europe.

Original article: Barry Moody. Reuters. 2 April 2009. Read more…