As most schools are taking on a Go Green project alongside the government’s call for all available methods to preserve the environment, a secondary school teacher in Mukono has come up with yet another relatively cheap, healthy and quick result oriented clean fuel system of cooking for both homesteads and learning institutions with a huge population.
The honeycomb briquettes, made from a mixture of charcoal dust, clay soil, water and other waste materials which get solidified in a unique and tender process was introduced to St. Stephen’s Senior Secondary School Ddandira-Mukono by the School’s Director of Studies Lwanika Daniel.
Lwanika says this is an initiative which he started silently during the Covid19 lockdown but has since leveraged a steadily available market from his employers and his neighborhood.
Besides being cost effective and eco-friendly, the honeycomb briquettes are covered in a protective coating which cannot be penetrated by blowing wind hence preserving its heat burning for a longer period.
In an interview with Lwanika, he said he takes much pride in his initiative which he testifies that it has boosted his earnings with the readily available market.
Besides saving the environment which has been greatly degraded by the notorious actions of tree cutting for firewood and charcoal burning, the use of briquettes assures users of a relatively clean fuel as they have no carbon emission which is known for causing chronic diseases like lung cancer and many more, while at the same time taking relatively less time for cooking.
To make a business sense out of this initiative, Lwanika sells a briquette at sh2,000 which heats for a period between 4 – 5 hours for a relatively small family, and in comparison, a person using ordinary charcoal will need about 5,000 to cook a meal for a smaller period of time.
As for the school, Lwanika says that it previously needed firewood worth sh3.2m for a month, while currently when using the honeycomb briquettes, they have reduced to sh1.8m for the same period; this way, money offset is spent on other school requirements thus saving for other needs that facilitate to run the school.
He said he thought of colleagues in other schools and sold the idea to them so that they would get on board in the income generating venture, adding, “the COVID 19 period was especially a good learning period for us and today, with the competence-based curriculum in schools, production of the honeycomb has become a much easier process,” he said.
The school Director, Daniel Zimbe is all praises for the honeycomb briquettes business, saying they were embraced with open hands because of their exceptional qualities like keeping the kitchen staff free from respiratory illnesses owing to their carbon-free emission nature, being less costly, keeping the kitchen clean and getting the food ready for students in time.
Zimbe said they have re-christened their kitchens “the smart kitchens” as there is no soot on roofs, saucepans and is safe for humans.
Moses Mulindwa, the chief cook at St. Stephens Senior School said the initial briquettes were brought for sampling but they never turned back because in addition to other fuel sources, the briquettes are less laborious to use.
“I cook for 1000 learners using 12 briquettes at a cost of sh2,000 for a briquette’ bringing it to a total of sh24,000, while using firewood for the same amount of food costs not less than sh50,000; secondly, the heat is retained even after the briquettes burn out, meaning that you do not have to re-start the fire for warming beans for supper”, he said.
Mulindwa was complemented by another cook at the school Sarah Nakandi, who said honey comb use is indeed a graduation from a laborious to a smoke free system.
A neighboring poultry chicken farmer, Eddy Tayebwa says he currently keeps 1,200 birds and has switched from charcoal use to honeycomb briquettes; from 7:00pm, he replaces the briquette at midnight, meaning he uses sh4,000 in that period against the sh6,000 he used to spend while using charcoal.
With adequate lobbying by relevant authorities to management of St. Stephen’s Secondary School Ddandira Mukono to facilitate training in other schools, prisons and other institutions, the project could become a major avenue through which schools could make savings in the face of the current biting economic situation.
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