In the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, mountains of trash are piling up along the dusty streets and footpaths of Africa’s largest slum.With local authorities not providing garbage collection in the area, tons of plastic bags, bottles and food waste form a distressing and harmful backdrop for the health of the thousands of people living in Kibera. But in the middle of it all, in the community of Laina Saba, a low-cost project, dubbed the Community Cooker, is helping to clean up the streets.
The Community Cooker is a device that uses trash as a resource to produce heat for a large stove-top that local residents use for cooking and heating water. The idea began eight years ago, when Nairobi Architect, Jim Archer was wondering how to get rid of the rubbish in Kibera, the huge slum that houses 60% of all the residents living in Nairobi’s informal settlements. In Kibera, there is no garbage collection and many inhabitants struggle to afford kerosene for their stoves. Archer began to think about converting garbage into something useful like heat for communal cooking and hot water for bathing, that would motivate people to pick up the waste that litters the area and endangers health and the ecosystem.
“The community has to be given more information on the dangers and the consequences of unnecessary dumping of wastes everywhere.”
-Bernard Asanya, Community Cooker project manager
FULL STORY: CNN.com
