How a 26-year-old’s briquettes venture is changing the climate action narrative in Makueni

Kibwezi town in Makueni County is the headquarters of a division that has over 80, 000 people of whom over 4,600 of them are classified urban.

Residents here are reeling from the effect of climate change; diminishing water sources and a concerning drop in the tree cover aggravated by the cutting down of trees for charcoal burning.

It is early morning when we get to Kalembwani village to meet a young man who is out to change this narrative. Joel Mutia is a briquette producer.

The 26-yer-old graduate of Technical and Applied Physics began this venture in 2021 with the aim of managing the biomass waste from the nearby industries.

“Kibwezi town has several industries and all of them have waste that is in the form of biomass kwanza hivo nikaona kuna changamoto kwa sababu hizi industries hazikuwa na good means of disposing of their biomass waste and also there was a big challenge of charcoal production or the supply of charcoal around this area,” he says.

From this, Joel explains the magic behind turning simple waste material into a useful source of energy.

He starts with the ignition and combustion of the husks to turn them into solid carbon, which is then crashed into powder then mixed with a liquid binder.

“Starch is the preferred binder that we use and for production purposes, we use potato peels, potato is a form of starch so we boil the starch, when you boil It it gets the sticky aspect inakuwa Kama gum so from that we add it to the powder, that was initially crushed and we put it into the briquette machine and we told them to become briquettes,” he says.

It will take a maximum of three days for the briquettes, which are dried under a shade, to be ready for use or to be sold. This alternative source of energy has been a game changer in environmental conservation.

We utilise industrial biomass waste so no one anywhere cuts a tree or harvests a tree for the production of carbon that way we are reducing the pressure on our forest resources because people can produce charcoal or briquettes in a sustainable way. 

The industrial biomass waste management project has created employment for over 20 other young people and is part of an initiative supported by non-state actors led by the Welthungerhilfe, to create green jobs and support environmental conservation in rural Kenya.

“The machine we have now is manual but it can be refabricated inaezaongezewa mortar ikuwe automated kutoka halo we will have a production capacity of 10 sacks in a day so for 1500 per sack we can make 15,000 a day, employ more people and even take this to the next level,” says Mutia.

He says by the end of this project they want to see changed livelihoods, more job opportunities for the youth through green businesses that we they supporting, and improved economic growth in the rural areas of Makueni and Kitui counties.

As the debate on climate change gains momentum globally, Joel insists that the youth cannot afford the luxury of taking a back seat.

“We are the ones who are energetic enough to push that factor ahead to control the effects of climate change, to conserve our environment because the generations to come depend on us greatly so if we don’t do it right now we shall have repercussions in the future,” says the 26-year-old.