Saving money and the environment with efficient stoves

Adapted from Daily Monitor Newspaper

JANE NAFULA

Ms Joyce Sembo Muwanga of Lutisi Parish in Namayumba sub-county, Wakiso District makes energy saving stoves for a living. The rectangular stoves which have two provisions for the saucepans are made out of soil from anthills. Sembo, a mother of six and a councillor has been in this business since last year.

She picked interest in this kind of work after she was appointed by officials from Sustainable Energy and Organic Faming System (Seofs) an NGO, to mobilise people in Namayumba sub-county to be trained in making energy-saving stoves.

The training was done under the Promotion of Renewable Energy and Efficient Programme of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development supported by the German Technical Corporation (GTZ).

Unlike the three-stone fireplace, heat is preserved when using the energy-stove, making it more efficient in energy use.

Sembo did not just sit back and watch as other people were being trained. She became part of the training and today, makes stoves for commercial purposes. The cost of her stoves ranges between Shs5,000 and Shs30,000.

They are mainly sold within Wakiso District. Her advice to families especially those in rural areas it to make use this kind of stoves because they consume less firewood, using 60 per cent less wood compared to traditional three stone fires.

In Uganda, about 500,000 stoves are already in use, each saving 1.5 tonnes of fuel wood a year. If you use a lot of firewood in this stove, the saucepan will be damaged within a few months.

Wakiso District Vice Chairman, Mr Edward Tumusiime says the promotion of energy-saving stoves is timely because it has come at the time when Wakiso like many other districts in the country is facing severe wood shortage.

This is because most forests have been cleared to make room for farming, construction or to provide firewood for brick burning.
Firewood and charcoal, both by-products of wood are scarce and the little that is available is sold at a high price which can hardly be afforded by the urban and rural poor.

In Wakiso for example, a bag of charcoal costs Shs25,000 from Shs5,000 in 2006. A small piece of firewood costs Shs300 compared to Shs50 a couple of years ago.

Some families in Wakiso now spend Shs1,000 on firewood everyday yet the majority live on less than a dollar a day. Wood shortage, known as the second energy crisis is severely affecting poor countries in the world including Uganda.
Tumusiime calls for the planting of more trees to counteract the effects of global warming as well as address the current wood shortage in the country.

Mr John Kutesakwe from GTZ says that if people embrace the use of energy saving stoves, they will spend less on firewood and at the same time, conserve the environment. He explains that in Wakiso for instance, 61,436 households who are now using energy-saving stoves would be saving Shs11bn annually which they have been spending on firewood.

He also says the population would be saved from toxic smoke that is normally emitted by ordinary cooking stones and expose people to diseases like cancer, TB, Asthma , blindness or having a miscarriage.

According to the World Health Oragnisation, a person who cooks on three stones where smoke is not regulated is like someone who has smoked two packets of cigarettes. The energy-saving stoves don’t emit smoke.
Residents’ reactions to the project

While some people say that the project has minimised expenditure on firewood and created job opportunities, others say, it has restored intimacy love among couples because women no longer smell bad due to the smoke.

Kutesakwe says plans are underway to extend this project to other districts so that all Ugandans can benefit from the project. Some of the districts that have been covered so far include Bushenyi, Wakiso, Tororo, Mbale, Kayunga Mukono and Rakai, with Bushenyi being the first district to benefit from the project.

A total of 120,000 households were covered in Rukungiri. The Chairman Board of Directors for Seofs, Mr Shem Kirumira says about 97 per cent of households burn wood to cook their meals, because electricity, gas, oil or petroleum are either unavailable or too costly.

Mr Kirumira says since wood which is widely used especially in rural areas is scarce, making use of energy-saving stoves would enable them to economise the firewood that is available. Statistics from GTZ indicate that seven out of 10 women do without a hot meal once a week due to lack of fuel wood for cooking.

The spokesperson of the National Forestry Authority (NFA), Mr Moses Watasa says energy-saving stoves would contribute to conservation of the few remaining forests, adding that every year, 15 per cent of the forest cover is destroyed and that since energy-saving stoves use less firewood, the chances of some forests surviving are high. He says 13 per cent of the destruction takes place in privately owned forests while 2 per cent occurs in government forest reserves.

“There is increased pressure on the forest reserves especially in Central Uganda where several districts including Nakasongola, Mpigi and Wakiso have been severely affected,” he says. He attributes this to increased demand for firewood, charcoal and timber.

He says currently, NFA is promoting the planting of trees like eucalyptus and pine to check the looming shortage of wood fuel and timber. NFA is also planting more endangered species such as mahogany in the forest reserves.

feature2: Unlike the three-stone fireplace, heat is preserved when using the energy-stove, making it more efficient in energy use.