Community Carbon Collectors in Kenya

Charcoal demand in Kenya exceeds 1.6 million tons per year, but fifteen percent of the charcoal supply is discarded at urban trading sites as dust.  This discarded dust creates more than 70 tons of waste, clogging waterways and exacerbating air pollution.  Until recently, charcoal dust collection in Nairobi has been limited to a few large charcoal trading centers, with most of the city’s charcoal dust being discarded in numerous, inaccessible, small-scale charcoal shops.

Chardust, a company that compresses charcoal dust into fuel briquettes, has teamed up with an NGO that has an existing garbage collection program to encourage Kibera slum dwellers to act as “carbon collectors”, salvaging charcoal dust to sell to Chardust for processing into briquettes. Unlike charcoal, these briquettes contain no remaining wood to smoke when burned, thus improving indoor air quality when used for cooking.

Chardust has already developed a strong market for these briquettes, selling more than 2,500 tons a year with customer demand growing at over 25 percent.  The strong market also ensures a steady stream of income for the carbon collectors.  Moreover, the project transforms waste material into a cleaner-burning fuel alternative that is 40 percent cheaper than charcoal, thus offering slum residents a more affordable fuel.

Since winning the Development Marketplace award in 2005, Chardust has already two permanent dust collection centers, designed the necessary collection equipment, trained approximately 50 collectors, and begun converting the charcoal waste into two different grades of briquette.  Eventually, the project team anticipates producing 5 tons of briquettes per day to replace 6 tons of firewood charcoal and save over 60 tons of live, standing wood.  As a result, up to 300 low-income slum dwellers will earn US$900 per month (equivalent to over a year’s income) as charcoal dust suppliers, and at least 1,000 charcoal-using households would benefit from lower fuel costs.

Source: World Bank

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