It is indeed a brilliant idea: to collect banana peels and other garbage, turn them into flour which you then compact into fuel blocks.

It makes the city cleaner, and fewer trees have to be cut to make charcoal. The environmental
association ACEN (Association pour la Conservation de l’Environnement) in Kabusunzu is doing just that, providing a livelihood to more than hundred people and their families in the process.

The association, which was formed in August 2003, initially brought together women who were once prostitutes or street vendors. Today, it has 133 members, 90 of which are women.

One of the main objectives of the ACEN is to protect trees from being cut, and to promote cleanliness amongst families or in other places like hotels and restaurants by removing their garbage.

The executive director of the association, Beatrice Uwimuhwe, explains that the association collects their raw material from some 4,000 families in Nyarugenge, and from some hotels and restaurants. “We currently work mainly in the sectors of Kimisagara and Nyakabanda, but we plan to expand our services to other sectors,” she says.

They have a capacity of manufacturing 800 kg of fuel blocks per hour, which is sold to the prisons in Kimironko and Ruhengeri, as well as to some brick-makers in Rulindo. They fetch Frw 170 per kilo, and are in the comfortable situation of selling their entire production at one.

“When the garbage arrives, we first sort it out because some of it, such as polythene bags, is not suitable for our final product”, explains Uwimuhwe. “About 70% of the garbage is usable, and this is dried; the remaining 30% we burn so as to not contaminate the soil. After drying the garbage, it is put in a machine that transforms it into flour. Then there is the compacter, which mixes the flour with water and produces the compact fuel blocks.”

Beatrice Uwimuhwe says that the association has received aid form the French and Dutch embassies (the latter gave them the idea for their current activity), as well as from the district of Nyarugenge; amongst others, they were given wheelbarrows for garbage collection, and they also received financial support.

Celeste Habumugisha is a member of ACEN and one of the workers who collect garbage, for which he gets a monthly fee of Frw 15,000. He says that the association has greatly helped him, because before he was unemployed and poor, and now he has a job can he can make ends meet.

It’s amazing how much cleanliness and joy a simple banana peel can bring!