Business brains turn waste food into sought-after oil and fuel

Korogocho is one of Nairobi's busiest food markets, where there's a never-ending supply of food waste. It could become an environmental problem, but a small company has turned it into a business opportunity. The World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank, claims nearly 40 percent of food produced in Kenya is lost or wasted, even as millions face food insecurity. In Nairobi alone, the city generates an estimated 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes of food waste every day, much of it ending up in dumpsites where it contributes to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Miramar Foundation, a non-profit that says it looks for solutions to development challenges. But for wastepreneur Martin Komu, this waste is not an endpoint. It's a starting point. Moving through Korogocho market, he and his team collect discarded overripe avocados and banana leaves, which form the bulk of the waste, and transform them into valuable products. Komu describes the operation: "We do waste management in Korogocho market through a circular economy approach, where we use the waste generated in Korogocho market as the main source of our raw materials. We have several products we manufacture from the waste generated from Korogocho market, which include avocado oil, which we extract from overripe avocados. We make briquettes from charred banana leaves. Banana leaves account for 80% of all the waste generated within Korogocho market." After the collection, the team sorts the waste by hand, separating usable organic material from the rest. Some of it is layered into compost pits to produce organic fertilizer, while avocados are carefully prepared and processed into oil. Nearby, banana leaves are charred and compressed into briquettes, an affordable and cleaner alternative to traditional cooking fuels. According to a scientific study in the journal Nature last November, "Producing briquettes is a great way to protect the environment by preventing open burning or landfilling of these biomass streams. In addition, this helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigates the harmful impacts of improper waste disposal." This article was provided by The Associated Press.