Eco Factor: Waste to energy-converting cooker could protect the environment and feed the poor.
Nairobi’s Kibera slum, said to be the biggest in Africa, assaults the eye as soon as you enter its premises, with health hazards posed by garbage. The area is home to 800,000 needy and poor people, who don’t really have enough money to buy fuel, which could be used for cooking fuel. The trash-filled rivers and muddy streets are an unwanted addition to the problems.
After nine years of development, Kenyan designers have developed a prototype “Community Cooker,” which is being tested in Kibera slum. The cooker has been developed to work on garbage and trash, which is in abundance in these areas. Using trash for fuel, the cooker reaches around 650 Celsius at present, but researchers believe that 1,000 degrees should be possible with some minor tweaks.
The Dark Side:
The cooker does seem to provide an end to all problems faced by the people living in the slums of Africa. However, the prototype cooker costs about $10,000 to build, even if mass produced the designers estimate that the cost cannot be less than $5,000.
