Making briquettes (cooking fuel) from biowaste

Entrepreneur

About Me

My Name is Gichuki Nuthu from Kiambu county, Kenya. I reside in Thika sub county near the county's largest dumpsite Kang'oki. When I bought a piece of land here 7 years ago, my plan was to ascertain how I can benefit from waste dumped without raising conflict with the community around who scavenged for valuable in the dumpsite. The valuables include but not limited to plastics, metal cans, nylon bags for recycling and stale food which are fed to dogs and pigs.
Only a few, if any, were interested with bio garbage from markets, residential and business areas.
I am Certified Public Accountant of Kenya and currently pursuing Bachelor of Commerce degree, marketing management option at Mount Kenya University , I ventured into recycle of this matter to clean the environment, avail affordable source of fuel to neighbours and create employment.

My Business

In the year 2018, I ventured in recycling of this bio waste matter including sawdust from sawmills and timberyards, charcoal dust from yards.
Towards this, I engaged a local technician who calibrated a local briquette machine which currently produce 6 -25kg bags a day. We sell at kenya shillings 30.00 a kilo.
These products have ready market in the neighborhood where clients use briquettes in their homes for cooking, others use for warming up their chicken broods. Thika sub county has many chicken rearing farmers. There is also the nearby Nairobi city, Kenya's capital where a sizable population still depends on charcoal as fuel and we have introduced our briquettes as a substitute to save forest and environment.
We also use some in our kitchen. This has reduced our domestic budget substantially.
We have created employment whereby,currently we have one employee. We hope to employ more in near future after upgrading our briquettes machine as the current one has reached maximum production and it level of efficiency is not satisfactory.
We also utilise the excess space for poutry rearing.

Loan Proposal

I will buy more raw material like charcoal dust , sawdust,red soil, molasses ,pay electricity for running the machine and labour. Any reminder will go to chicken project that I started last month for augment the machine upgrade funds.

Income Source

Briquettes being an essential source of fuel around the country has limited supply as few manufacturer are in it. Even the factories in Kenya that wish to use briquettes for their processes have opted out because of lack of supplies.
Small enterprises like mine are only able to supply home and small enterprises. Our product has ready market whereby our store runs almost empty .The gap is huge and cannot be satisfied in the near future.

My Videos

Jan 9, 2021: Briquettes and chicken rearing in thika kenya

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