Mosonero has earned a living from rubbish

By Stella Naigino

AFTER many years of staying home with nothing to generate income from, Justine Musenero now makes charcoal brickets from her home in Kawempe, Wakiso district.

To her rubbish is gold, as her neighbours now take all their rubbish to Musenero and some even ask her to pay them or else they dump it somewhere else.

However since Musenero earns a living from charcoal brickets she pay them a small amount of shs 500 per sack just to get their rubbish.

How she started

She visited friends in Jinja who were making charcoal brickets. From them, she learnt how the whole process begins and ends.

When she returned to her home, she vowed to do the same so that she could save herself from poverty.

How she makes charcoal brickets

After getting the rubbish, Musenero is left with the challenge of sorting the rubbish to remove polythene bags and bottles.

“Almost all kinds of rubbish can make charcoal brickets but bottles and polythene bags do not,” explains Musenero.

After sorting the rubbish, she dries it so that the burning process is not delayed by wet rubbish.

After drying, she starts burning the rubbish in a drum with a funnel to control the smoke and also to ensure that the rubbish does not burn to ashes.

Although she ensures that all rubbish burns and forms a black colour it retains its shape.

After she pours it on iron sheets as she pounds it to make powder form before filtering it to eliminate the hard substances from the powder.

After, she mixes the powder with cassava flour porridge, to act as a binder of the particles to make charcoal brickets.

From here, she pours the mixture in a machine that is operated manually to make charcoal brickets of different sizes.

After production the brickets are put under the sun for 3-6 hours to dry before they are sold off.

Marketing

Musenero says there is ready market for her brickets as she packs them and sells to supermarkets, while others are bought right from her home.

Customers know that I have charcoal brikets, so they come and buy in large quantities because charcoal brickets can cook for 6-8 hours.

She sells a sack of charcoal brickets at shs 70000 and in a month she can sell about 70 sacks.

Achievements

Musenero is happy that she is among those who reserve forests by not cutting tress to make charcoal but rather make charcoal bricket from rubbish and still the demand of charcoal is met.

She also meets her daily needs with money she gets from brickets.

Musenero also trains others on how to make brickets and this still generates income for her.