Kenyan slum seeks to turn sewage into gold with recycling plant
Abdullahi Ibrahim’s dream to set up a fruit-juice business has so far been thwarted by water scarcity in Kenya’s biggest slum, Kibera. But the 19-year-old is confident a reliable water supply - which he sees as a basic need - will be available one day, enabling him to open up shop. His ambition could get a boost as soon as March, when a sewage treatment plant under construction in the east of the slum, home to around a quarter of a million people in southwest Nairobi, is due to start operating. The plant is being built by ASTICOM K Ltd, a Kenyan company that specializes in waste recycling, with $12.7 million in funding from the multi-donor Climate Technology Initiative.
ASTICOM CEO Leah Tsuma said the plant will be the first in Africa to both purify sewage into clean water and convert solid waste into power. “Accessing water and electricity is a big problem for us slum dwellers,” said Ibrahim. “I am looking to this recycling plant for things to change.” In the absence of a water treatment system, groups of traders have taken over Kibera’s water supply. Even for those still connected to the city council water network like Robert Akim, a clerk at the Kibera Constituency Office, unexpected rationing leaves them at the mercy of the private suppliers.
“The whole slum is messy because the cartels do not do their job as expected,” said Akim. “They control the supply of water, energy and waste management.” The new plant, whose construction began in November on a 5-acre plot of land donated by a local housing co-operative, could help bust their monopoly. Two drainage canals running through the slum will channel waste water to the plant, while young people will be awarded contracts to supply solid waste, said project leader Tsuma. The plant’s planned power capacity is 8 megawatts of electricity, which will be generated using biogas from solid waste.
It also aims to produce 6,000 tons of methane per year that will be sold for cooking. Treated water will be provided free to Kibera residents, Tsuma added. The plant’s purification technology uses anaerobic digestion where raw sewage is collected in a big tank, and then filtered and taken through a chemical process to remove harmful bacteria. The solid waste in the sewage water will be used to make biogas, while the liquid part is purified, Tsuma said. “Even the bad smell is removed, and so clean drinking water is generated,” she explained. —Reuters