Biogas solution to unclean kitchen smokes

On average, a sack of charcoal costs Shs100,000 today and for a family of seven that goes through the rigours of cooking breakfast, lunch and supper, a sack can last only a week. In a month, such a family will spend Shs400,000 on cooking fuel alone. A year ago, this is the dilemma Martha Egunyu and her husband faced. Egunyu is a professional secretary living in Busambaga, Entebbe municipality.

“We are both employed as civil servants, so even with our combined salaries, cooking had become too expensive. And this cost did not include the money spent on buying food. Luckily, my husband is a driver, so sometimes, when he travelled upcountry, he would buy sacks of charcoal cheaply. But the trips do not happen every month and on days when there was no money, we would buy a basin of charcoal residue (olusenyente) to cook our food,” she says.

Besides the expense, Egunyu, whose kitchen is in a wooden structure next to her house says cooking with charcoal posed a health risk to her maid. “Our kitchen does not have windows so if we bought a sack of bad charcoal with half burnt sticks, there would be a lot of smoke coming from the sigiri (charcoal stove). This meant that she would have a stuffy nose for days on end,” she says.
Benefits of cooking with biogas
On a visit to the village in Soroti, Egunyu found a biogas digester in her sister’s home.

“My sister said what I needed the most was cow dung, which she had in plenty, since she was zero-grazing 10 cows in her home. My husband built our home on a fairly large piece of land so when we discussed the benefits of using biogas, we bought three cows.”
Egunyu’s household is now one of the more than 7,800 households using biogas for cooking and lighting in Uganda.

“For me, the benefit is that our cooking costs have gone down. Besides the installation of the bio-digester, which cost us about Shs2m, our main costs involve feeding the cows,” she says, adding that with biogas, the cooking is much cleaner because the stove does not emit smoke.

Egunyu is not the only Ugandan who was brought up to believe that only charcoal and firewood can be used to cook. In fact, more than 90 per cent of Uganda’s population depends on these for their cooking energy. A 2015 Statistical Report from the Uganda Bureau of Statistics revealed that in 2009/2010, the value of household expenditure on firewood and charcoal was Shs409.1 billion. This was a rise from Shs32.8 billion five years earlier, in 2005/2006.

Risks of using solid fuels
The high value placed on using solid cooking fuels comes at a high cost to the health of women and children who spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Charcoal and firewood produce high levels of indoor air pollution that exposes households to a range of respiratory problems.

Dr Arnold Wataka, a general practitioner, says health problems that come with exposure to smoke from wood are much higher if the kitchen is inside the house.

“When the cooking is done in an indoor kitchen with poor ventilation, over time, the person cooking will display a greater number of symptoms of indoor air pollution such as shortness of breath, coughing sputum, and wheezing. These symptoms are more common with those who use firewood. However, they can also be noticed when one is lighting a charcoal stove,” Dr Wataka says.

Wheezing and coughing while lighting a charcoal stove may seem like a harmless everyday experience, but according to 2018 statistics from the World Health Organisation (WHO), annually, four million people die prematurely from illness attributable to household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices using polluting stoves paired with solid fuels and kerosene.

WHO further states that close to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children under 5 years of age are caused by particulate matter (soot) inhaled from household pollution.

“Young children are vulnerable because they are usually with their mothers in the kitchen. Cooking with biogas is a very important step in reducing indoor pollution. But, for families that find it hard to acquire that technology, cooking outside the house is a cheaper alternative because it reduces the gases and particles that stick to the air inside the house,” Dr Wataka says.
Installing bio-digesters
A number of Ugandans are now waking up and shifting towards cleaner cooking fuels, such as LPG (gas), electricity, solar and biogas. But, cooking on the first three fuels is expensive. Approximately 31 million people in Uganda live without electricity and this has had significant ramifications for the economy and quality of life, hindering people’s ability to carry out basic activities at night, such as household chores, reading, schoolwork and business activities. On the other hand, the initial cost of buying a 12kg gas cylinder is Shs200,000, while a refill costs Shs100,000.

Of late, biogas is being promoted as an alternative clean and high quality source of energy, not only for cooking, but for lighting as well. In Uganda, since 2010, the African Biogas Partnership Programme (ABPP II) is being implemented by Biogas Solutions Uganda, with technical assistance from SNV Uganda.

Florence Kintu, the sales manager, Biogas Solutions Uganda, says more than 7,800 households have constructed biogas digesters, giving 45,600 people in rural Uganda clean energy for cooking and lighting. “The primary target market is households with domestic animals, such as cows, pigs, and chicken, that can provide feedstock (dung). The quantity of daily feedstock determines the size of the bio-digester to be constructed. Since most households construct small units, these can only provide gas for cooking and lighting,” kintu says.

Biogas is not only a preserve of people living in rural parts of the country. Even those living in urban areas are using it, but the downside is that one needs space to build the bio-digester. Also, not many people practice zero-grazing of cattle in urban areas to produce the much needed feedstock.

Cost
A biodigester that caters for cooking and lighting costs between Shs1.8m and Shs2.2m. However, Martha Egunyu has not yet considered using it for lighting her home.
“I am still using electricity for lighting and ironing, although I was told it is much cheaper to use biogas. When I installed the bio-digester, I did not include the lighting equipment but I am considering it since I have young children. At least this will save me the worry of my children getting accidental electric shocks,” she says.