MANAGING WASTE AT SOURCE FOR A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT

We humans are the only creatures on Planet Earth that produce waste. In fact, we invented the word “waste”. Before us, absolutely everything was recycled. Now, because of our farming practices and food chain distribution, everything we touch has “waste”.

THE CHALLENGE

1. Our governments spend millions of tax payer dollars every year trucking waste from collection pits in urban centres to landfills on the outskirts of the centres.

2. Waste pilling up in landfills not only pollutes the air, rivers and underground aquifers, it also encourages the development of densely populated slums around its borders.

3. With very little clean fresh water, the seeping black rivers posing serious health risks to the occupants.

4. With very little policing and lack of schooling, gangs form and a host of antisocial activities become commonplace. Drug addiction and peddling, prostitution, child abuse, robberies and mugging, and more serious criminal activities just to mention a few.

5. To compound matters, the use of charcoal as their primary cooking fuel in the millions of low income dwellings around every city and town are burning down our forests at a non-recoverable rate unless there is an immediate and deliberate attempt the reduce the use of charcoal. Sahara desert is knocking at our doorstep.

6. Banning charcoal without providing an alternative cooking fuel is not the answer to saving the forests or improving the living standards of the people. On the contrary, the increased price of charcoal only lowers the living standards of the mass population.

7. From a different perspective, increased cases of cancer are directly linked to the chemicals used in our food production. Conventional agriculture practices encourage the use of chemicals from herbicides before and planting and during growth, chemical fertilisers, chemical pesticides and fungicides, and even post-harvest chemicals in stored grains and other farm produce. This is compounded by misleading and inappropriate sale of chemical to unsuspecting farmers by unscrupulous agro-vet dealers just to make a quick buck.

Unless there is an immediate and deliberate attempt to reduce the use of charcoal, the Sahara desert will move in-house Kenya.

THE SOLUTION

CIRCULAR ECONOMY

URBAN ENERGY BIOGAS-ON-TAP

At Biogas International Ltd – BIL, we have developed a 1 Stop Urban Waste Management Solution designed to manage waste at source. All waste is sorted and recycled appropriately as source, eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and substantially reducing carbon emissions.

This circular economy design eliminates the need for transporting waste to landfills and in doing so will save the tax payers millions in associated costs.

By replacing charcoal with biogas in homes, restaurants, communal kitchens etc will reduce deforestation.

The clean burning biogas will also have immeasurable health benefits especially to women in their cooking environment.

ORGANIC COMPOSE TEA

What goes in must come out, and does so in the form of a rich organic compost tea. This can be applied as a fertiliser to topsoil, fed through sprinklers or drip-line irrigation systems, or added to compost for building healthy topsoil.

When sprayed on crops as a foliar feed, the bio-tea also doubles as an extremely effective pest repellent on crops.

Considering that the inputs material to the digesters is only expired human food, the bio-tea by-product also double as a livestock feed supplement.

JOB CREATION

The model also creates employment, and will attempt to develop the skills of youth who demonstrate a keen liking to the biogas big picture.

BUSINESS MODEL

To guarantee sustainability, the model is designed as a business model with the sale of services and
products generated by the plant generating sufficient income to sustain the operational expenses, as
well as reasonable profits for expansion.

HOW IT WORKS
It’s really quite simple.
Instead of trucking tons of organic waste from estates, market places, street corners etc all the way
across town to city dumps and landfills, our model proposes setting up large capacity T-Rex digesters
smack in the middle of the populated areas and market places where large volumes of organic waste is
generated.

RECYCLE MARKET

• Youths will be trained in waste collection and separation.
• All the different types of waste will sold to the appropriate recyclers.
• The organic waste will be fed to the Biogas Plant.
• Gas sold to close by user via piped mini-grid
• Bio-Tea sold to farmers

INCOME STREAMS
1. Biogas
Gas generated is piped directly to points of use, for example communal kitchens, and via a mini-grid
network to domestic homes.
The gas is sold. The payment models will vary from user to user. The different methods include
i. Metered gas – Prepaid or/& PAYG
ii. Communal kitchens -PAYG
iii. Daily timed cooking periods – Prepaid
iv. Portable balloons – PAYG

2. Organic Fertiliser/ Compost Tea Fertiliser / Livestock Suppliment 
A second income stream will be through the sale of fertiliser. The brokers that bring fresh vegetables
and fruits to the market place will be trained to broker the fertiliser back to their farmer clients.
The model will also encourage the charcoal hawkers to broker fertiliser and gas to their regular
clients.
So in effect, landfills will become a thing of the past.

3. BioSanGas – Human waste management systems

We have also developed a very hygienic public toilet system that also produces biogas. Bioslurry from these plants is channelled at fruit tree planting programs.
The Pay As You Go – PAYG model can be applied here.

SOCIAL ENTERPRISE FOR SMALL PROFIT
The sustainability factor of the model is profits, and set up as a social enterprise.
We’re looking at each plant having individual investment partners. Like you maybe. We’ll also
probably need to partner with county government offices for licencing and land space to install the
units. Revenue share will be with investment partners.

VERSATILITY
Our T-Rex digesters are prefabricated and modular allowing for upgrading or renoval.
Installation is only a couple of days for smaller plants, and a week or 2 for sizeable plants.
Gas-up within a couple of weeks.

RESPONSIBILITIES
BIL will provide the technology, maitenance, training for plant sustainability. The partner suggests
the location, coordination with council where applicable and provides financial investment against
equity share.
Revenue share will be as per investment equity, and paid out after salaries and overheads are
deducted.
We’re looking for partners to setup the Biogas plants in estates, slums, and anywhere there are waste
management issues.

THE BOOKS
Partnership investment and equity will be in the region of 50%
Small to medium T50 plants with a capacity to process 1 ton of feedstock per day will cost in the
region of USD 20,000.
The T50 plant will serve gas to approximately 40 – 50 homesteads

REVENUE STREAMS

• Sale of gas estimated at USD 800 – 1,000 per month.
• Sale of fertiliser estimated at USD 1 – 2,000 per month
• Conservative Monthly turnover = $ 3,000

Monthly overheads

• Feedstock $300
• Staff salary $600
• Incidentals $100
  Total $ 1,000

Assuming net profit of $ 2,000 per month, return on investment in only 20 months.

See pictures of T-rex digesters, and our BioSanGas human waste management plants