Mama Nansereko places her green charcoal briquettes out to dry  (GODFREY OLUKYA)

Mama Nansereko, 45, hand rolls a mixture of small pieces of dry banana peels, coffee husks and rice husks with small amounts of wet black clay and shapes them into biomass briquettes, before placing them neatly in the sun to dry.

The agricultural waste briquettes can be used as a replacement for fossil fuels such as coal and oil and can be used in cooking at home or heating boilers in factories among many other energy uses.

Called green charcoal because of its ingredients, it, when lit, also does not emit dangerous smoke, like charcoal made from wood.

Providing a livelihood

A mother of four, Nansereko has been making green charcoal for the last five years as a means of survival.

"I was taught how to make green charcoal by some people working in the forestry department. We were about 50 women in the training session. They told us that we were being trained so that we could stop using firewood and charcoal made out of trees, as one of the ways of saving our forests from being destroyed," said Nansereko, who lives in Mpereirwe Village about 15 km from the Ugandan capital of Kampala.

The briquettes take three days to dry before she sells them. "I sell a pile of about 20 briquettes at 5,000 Ugandan shillings (about $1.5)," said Nansereko, adding that she uses part of the money she gets from sales to pay school fees for her children.

One of her customers Lydia Nambalirwa said that for the last two years she has been cooking using the briquettes. "They are far more economical than charcoal from trees. I use only four briquettes to cook beans for three people. Although made from agricultural waste, they are clean burning and smokeless when cooking," said Nambalirwa.

Agnes Ayu sells green charcoal at her shop in Kampala. She said that she sells it by weight, although most people who sell it do so by number. "Many people in the city, who do not use electricity or gas to cook, use green charcoal, because it produces far less smoke than other types of charcoal," she said.

Green charcoal can also be used to cook in much larger settings like prisons, schools and institutions. Abel Kiwalabye, Principal of Galiraya Technical Institute in the central Ugandan district of Kayunga, said that a few months earlier, he was introduced to using green charcoal by the school cook. Since they have started using green charcoal, the school has saved a substantial amount of money, compared to what they would usually spend on firewood, said Kiwalabye.

Environmental conservation

According to Umar Kasirye, a forestry officer in the central Ugandan district of Mubende, his department had taught local women how to make green charcoal in an effort to reduce tree felling and help prevent deforestation.

"Making and using green charcoal is rapidly being promoted in Uganda by government agencies, environmentalists and non-government organizations as one of the ways of reducing the cutting down of trees in the country," said Kasirye.

His views were echoed by Uganda's State Minister for Environment Beatrice Anywar, who said that in order to save the country's forests, "we should encourage people to use green charcoal. We encourage Ugandans to use it instead of using charcoal made from trees."

Efforts have been made by some individuals to enable green charcoal to be made on a larger scale in factories. A businessman in Kampala, Jackson Kawule, said he is setting up a factory near Kampala to make green charcoal, having done a feasibility study that shows such an investment is viable.

Kawule said that the factory would include several processes, consisting of four key steps. The organic waste must be harvested, left to dry, treated at high temperature and finally molded into briquettes.

A science teacher at Basajjamivule Secondary School in Lwengo District in west Uganda, who is also the patron of the school's environment protection club, Richard Kafeero said that the idea of starting up factories to make green charcoal is excellent, because it would save the environment, especially as far as cutting down trees is concerned. He noted that to make the green charcoal on a bigger scale, agricultural waste materials are carbonized in a kiln made from a metallic container. The carbonized material is then crushed and mixed together with a binding agent made from clay or starch made from cassava, and formed into briquettes using a small press. The process takes only a few hours.

According to Kafeero, another advantage of reducing exposure to charcoal smoke is removing the risk of respiratory infections. Charcoal from agricultural waste can also be paired with complementary technologies like fuel-efficient stoves to further reduce fuel consumption, he said.

According to the then Ministry of Agriculture in the 1980s, which included forestry at that time, approximately 75,000 square km (32 percent) of total land mass consisted of forest and woodland.

Today, government figures show that forests and woodlands cover less than 15 percent of Uganda's land surface, meaning that the country has lost 16.5 percent of forests and woodland cover.

The country continues to lose forest cover at a very alarming rate. Recent studies by the Africa Natural Resources Institute (a department of the African Development Bank) indicate that Uganda loses an estimated 200,000 hectares of forest cover per year. This is mostly due to cutting down of trees, although population growth and migration have also played a role.

The studies go on to show that due to poor rural electrification and costly electricity, 80 percent of Ugandans have to use charcoal as the main source of cooking fuel. According to the studies, Uganda may not have any forests left in the next 83 years due to cutting down of trees and rapid population growth.

"It is imperative that the government supports those who make green charcoal so that they make it in large quantities and supply it all over the country. That will reduce cutting down of trees in the forests," said former Member of Parliament and environmentalist Kenneth Lukyamuzi. 

(Print Edition Title: Handmade Green Energy)

Reporting from Uganda

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