Blue Gas

For a city that excels at adding value to waste items, Kisumu struggles with a systematic approach for solid-waste management. Food and animal wastes run rampant in the streets and markets while families still cook for hours every day using harmful fuels like kerosene, charcoal and firewood. This project takes to heart the insight that if a solution isn’t affordable to those who need it the most — it’s not a solution. Using only locally-sourced materials and a grassroots innovation approach, the solution proposes a systematic way to imagine the Kisumu-specific transition to BioGas – ushering in a safer, more sustainable development path from the bottom up. Using Design Research methods, this project looks into the business possibilities and affordability models of a domestic biogas digester, a harvesting storage bag, and a modified biogas stove. The goal is to provide the most affordable model for a piecemeal transition to alternative and renewable energy fuels in the household.