Kibera

©  2008  Rose George

I haven’t been to Kibera, an enormous slum in Nairobi, but I know that most people’s sanitation methods there consist of helicopter or flying toilets, which consist of defecating into a plastic bag, and throwing it somewhere else. Roofs and alleyways are popular. Defecating into a plastic bag actually isn’t a bad idea; it contains the shit. It’s the throwing part and the leaving in the living environment part that cause problems. Living amongst shit is not a good idea, because people end up ingesting it. (Lest that sounds disgusting, consider that if you flush the toilet with the lid up, your bathroom walls and your clothes and you are probably covered in microscopic fecal particles. As well as urine.). Anyway here is a nice AP story about biogas latrines - where methane is tapped from digested sewage, then used for cooking and heating - which have been set up in Kibera, as well as what seems like an extremely cool low-tech method of sterilizing water, which consists of putting dirty water in a plastic bottle and leaving it on the roof for six hours. UV radiation and temperature kill most of the bugs. I do like appropriate technology. If only there were more of it. 600 people use the biogas latrines; there are over a million people living in Kibera. Still, at least 68 orphans get hot showers and dinners. I write about China’s biogas digesters in the book, but I barely mention Rwanda, which is just as great. There, the technicians from the Kigali Institute of Technology have installed biogas digesters in over half a dozen of the country’s prisons. Those pink pyjama-ed genocidal murder suspects now grow lovely produce with the produce of their own latrines. Deforestation has decreased, as biogas is used for cooking so less wood is needed. The waterways are cleaner. In a concentrated, closed-loop environment like a prison, it makes perfect sense. Perhaps the UK prison service should consider it. More about KIST here and a video here.