My ongoing research on Technology and the Future of Work in three
informal sectors : Kawangware, Mukuru and Kibera, all in our beautiful
country Kenya, has opened my eyes and taught me a great deal of what the
classroom didn’t teach me no matter the amount of tuition fees I paid.
Yeah, I know and feel exactly what you are thinking, “Why waste a lot of
money in schools? What of the many lengthy hours wasted seated
listening to interesting/boring calculus lectures (subject to
discussion, I know), where it’s only the pretty rugged old professor who
fully understood what he was grumbling and rumbling about?” All these
faded into nothingness the moment I hit the old and smelly muddy alleys
in the name of streets of these informal settlements in my venture to
find out the technologies that have changed the lives of the residents
in three major sectors of water, hygiene and sanitation. For your
information, these three sectors combined simply form the acronym WASH
(Water, Sanitation and Hygiene).
With our (my teammates and I)
little knowledge of the areas, we always ensure to walk around with a
contact person, who is always presumed to be the area maestro born and
bred, to enable us maneuver easily in the areas and more so connect us
with the people in the WASH business for us to interview them. In our
daily endeavors, we have come across great technological processes and
chains, from garbage collection in the informal settlements to plastics
sorting and then to recycling. But this begs for the million dollar
question, “What happens to the organic wastes? Is it dumped in pits as
residents wait for it to decay?” To some extent, the answer is yes
though it was really captivating to come across someone who has made it
his lives work to recycle organic wastes. At this instant, please stop
having the idea of composting! Yes, composting gets the job done too but
there is nothing “unique” about that.
This particular person, a
resident of Kawangware, had for a very long time endured the agony of
watching organic wastes rot next to his door step. As a man of meager
means, he always had the usual manly dreams of making money and above
all making it in life, as do we all. Subjected to the grotesque sight of
rotting garbage at his door step every morning, he started thinking on
how to make his environment cleaner. Determination surely accompanied
his strong urge for a better and cleaner environment. He started
attending the local environmental conservation and awareness seminars
and conventions randomly organized by Non-Governmental Organizations in
the area. It was on one of these fine meetings that the issue of organic
wastes being used as a source of energy was discussed. Boom! This was
exactly what James was looking for. Briquettes made from organic wastes
to replace charcoal.
James immediately got interested in the
business and thus attended trainings on briquettes making and soon he
became a guru. He then started using the organic wastes at his door step
to make briquettes for his personal use and finally for sale. This
enabled him to add value to the wastes and more so made his environment
cleaner. To James making briquettes is an easier and a faster way of
managing organic wastes as compared to composting which takes a very
long time. He quoted some of the advantages of using briquettes as
smokeless, slow-burning and more efficient as compared to charcoal.
Speaking to Mr. James, he had a very touching message, he said, “The
adoption of briquettes helps me play a small part in environmental
conservation since it prevents the falling of trees to make charcoal.
It’s my own way of organic waste management considering there is no
enough land to invest in other more sophisticated methods of organic
wastes management such as composting. I also plan to take this business
one note higher where it will be sufficient to not only put food on my
table but also for other expenses such as my kids’ school fees”
Moving around in Kawangware area, I then came across another very
interesting observation. Goats roaming around the streets chewing
polythene paper bags. Don’t ask me because I also know that this must
sound really absurd right now. Call me crazy if you must because when I
saw it for the first time I also thought that I was going crazy and the
hallucinations had just kicked in! All of us know that goats eat organic
plants and on realizing that Kawangware goats were chewing polythene
paper bags I immediately thought that maybe they had developed a new
breed of goats, that I didn’t know about, to help in the ever growing
polythene problem management as a process of maintaining a clean
environment.
This cockamamie observation, really raked my brain and
this called for my undivided attention. I started observing the goats
more keenly. The moment I met a skinny goat chewing the polythene paper
bags, I almost pinched myself that I hadn’t thought of malnutrition as
the major cause. My breakthrough and triumph didn’t last long since
just a few meters from the skinny goat; I met a very fat healthy looking
goat chewing the same stuff! Ideas crisscrossed my mind. People always
tell me to think outside the box but actually how I think outside the
box when I have never been able to tell the size (dimensions, maybe
volume) of the box itself? So why do you think the goats in Kawangware
chew polythene paper bags?
Ok then I will simplify it for you. In
Kawangware there are so many informal businesses and a very poor waste
management system as it is in very many parts of this country. Take for
example the wheelbarrow/ push carts fruits vendors who sell their fruits
in polythene paper bags. After we, the buyers, are done eating the
fleshy part of the fruit, we toss the polythene paper bag with the fruit
rejects/remnants away. This is where the goats come in to help us sort
out our organic wastes. Therefore the goats have to go through the
polythene paper to reach the organic fruit contents. Chewing of the
polythene paper bag thus acts as a gate way to reach the fruit remnants
inside. It’s all about adaptation for survivor for the poor animals, as
it also is for all of us.
I was then left wondering do some of the
polythene particles swallowed by the goats affect them. If yes, does it
also affect some us who are goat meat roasters? I guess it’s as they say
that we need better technologies to manage our wastes or eventually the
chickens shall come home to roost!
Via Mugaa Erick
https://www.facebook.com/mugaa.eric
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