As most of you well know Kenya has some of the worst slums in the world. They are destitute and life there is miserable at best. Among the plethora of slums, the capital Nairobi is home to the infamous slum of Kibera. This slum village is the second largest in Africa holding around 1 million residents.(Source)
In these slums there are evidently numerous problems. One of the major concerns for the slums in Kenya are water, garbage, pollution, and food.
Because the sheer volume of people inhabiting the slums, creating an infrastructure to deal with these problems is a nightmare. Also, the government simply does not have the money or the resources to put systems in place that will work efficiently and over a long period of time. Although, this picture seems grim there is a ray of light.
For the past three years Nairobi based architect Jim Archer has been developing a simple system to combat the major problems. He has developed a system affectionately known as the Slum Cooker. This is basically a furnace fueled by garbage. The basic concept of it is that garbage can be burned at high temperatures to alleviate the toxins then the heat can be used by the oven or the eight hotplates. This system rids the slums of their mountains of garbage, gives the inhabitants the ability to clean their own water, and prevents the spread of disease due to less destitute conditions.
The reason this system is so groundbreaking and important is because it does something vary few systems do: it gives the residents control. Most other systems that have been put into place are dependent on some outside source giving the people clean water. However, this system allows the people to take water from anywhere and boil it, resulting in clean, and safer drinking water.
http://www.saptafoundation.org/img/kibera_slums.jpg
Although this system is wonderful in theory, I am skeptical for one major reason; the garbage. I am afraid that burning the garbage will result in toxins being put into the air and could have some dangerous negative affects. Archer does claim that burning garbage at high enough temperatures does stop dangerous toxins from entering the air and makes it perfectly safe. But doesn't certain products carry harmful carcinogens, and pollutants that will just add to our global environmental problem?
After some quick research it is clear that burning garbage does have dire consequences, basically burning any man made material puts dioxins into the air and this can cause cancer.
Now, I hope that the slum cooker's claim of making it safe to burn garbage is true, but if it is not it does provide us with a great stepping stone in making residents more self-reliant and independent of communal system.
Not related at all, but its interesting to learn a little bit about Jim Archer and his life: planning kenya
Media References:
WaterAidAmerica INC., "WaterAid America." http://www.wateraidamerica.org/ (accessed 10/31/2009).
http://www.planetfriendly.net/contact.html (accessed 10/31/2009).
Moody, Barry. "Slum Cooker." 04/02/2009.http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE53203320090403 (accessed 10/31/2009).
Yeah I realize that this does not have to do with Shelter or wet waste management, however I do think it's valid in the sense that it deals with water and slums. And since we are making a survival kit I think that this slum cooker system is an ideal for survival. Just think in an emergency response you send people to make-shift homes with these cooker system that do not any real source of fuel. It can be used temporarily and efficiently to provide a comfortable way of life in an emergency.
ReplyDelete-Kemal
So I was looking into it and apparently the slum cooker costs $5000 - $10000 to construct. I was wondering what kind of organization would be needed to finance a dept of this kind and whether there have been any successful applications of the design to date?
ReplyDeleteWell right now it seems like its just a prototype but the cost is not what's being considered here, it is the idea. The slum cooker provides an ideal system and yeah it expensive, so expensive that it probably won't ever become a legitimate reality, however the idea, the concept, the parti if you will, of the system is what's important. Making a system that the people can use and they can be off the grid is the idea and this is just the beginning in making it a viable reality.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with Kemal, this is the same problem I came across too. Every concept that I found that can potentially be considered as a possible solution to the existing problems found in slums are simply too expensive to construct or too expensive to maintain. This is especially true in already poor developing nations-there's just not enough capital to address the need of every single slum dwellers.
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