The Community Cooker – a brief history by Jim Archer

When I returned to Kenya in 1975, I was saddened to see the once ultra clean Nairobi littered with rubbish. Rubbish on the streets and in the gutters and dumped in smoldering piles was becoming the norm and seemed to be generally accepted by Nairobi’s citizens. Something had to be done. The questions I kept asking myself was what and by whom and how? 

About then my subconscious mind kept reminding me – over and over again – of a “tongue twister” composed by my father many years before about kuku (chicken), kuni (firewood) and kuni cookers:

Question

“How many Kikuyu kukus could a Kikuyu cook cook

On a Kikuyu kuni cooker, if a Kikuyu cook could cook

Kikuyu kukus on a Kikuyu kuni cooker?”

Answer

“As many Kikuyu kukus as a Kikuyu cook could cook

On a Kikuyu kuni cooker, if a Kikuyu cook could cook

Kikuyu kukus on a Kikuyu kuni cooker!”

Could I develop a stove that would burn rubbish to produce heat for cooking food, boiling water and generating steam? I could see logic for its success:

  • Firewood and charcoal are Kenya’s major cooking fuels – by far.
  • Kenya’s natural resources are diminishing alarmingly fast, especially trees.
  • Costs of fuel wood and charcoal are on the rise and will continue to rise as Kenya’s forests and scrub lands diminish.
  • Kerosene, cooking gas and electricity costs are beyond the financial reach of many Kenyans and are unlikely to reduce in cost.
  • Rubbish is everywhere and is only going to increase in quantity – (consequently “sustainable?”)
  • Heat for cooking food and boiling water will only increase in demand and will – I am told – eventually become one of the World’s primary requirements.

My first freehand “think” sketch emerged – I think that was the late 1980’s. I had no idea – then – of the need to burn the rubbish at temperatures exceeding 800°C in order to meet the W.H.O. minimum standards, and the E.U. and U.S.A. environmental solid waste emission standards. Happily, I gathered a few staunch and competent supporters along the way to make the journey easier.  Just to name a few of the early supporters:

  • Jo da Silva – partner in the International Engineering practice ARUP. My Community Cooker ideas caught her active interest and she was able to secure some engineering advice from ARUP on how to create what would when developed essentially be an incinerator with some cooking plates on top and with all of the rubbish burning areas enclosed in a steel jacket.
  •  Henry Ndede – UN Environment.  A meeting with Henry, who I had known for many years, chanced to touch upon this rubbish burning cooker. He went away and came back a few months later with a grant of $10,000 from UNEP for us to build a prototype cooker. 
  • Mumo Musuva – now a Director of PLANNING Group.  Mumo joined PLANNING as a young architect and quickly decided that the cooker was a very worthwhile project. Mumo persuaded BASCO paints to help support our cause and has been involved with all developments of the design. 
  • James Archer – now a Partner at ERM in the U.S.A. He was able to get a laboratory study done which concluded with: “One Community Cooker operated responsibly for one year can save the carbon equivalent of about 3000 mature trees”. A solid laboratory tested fact! 
  • “Firebox Francis’- a young Kenyan from the Kibra slums.  He made a living from generating heat to melt scrap brass and bronze and other soft metals for reuse. His “smelter” worked with a combination of disused sump oil and water both dripped into a ceramic crucible as the sump oil ignited. This concept would combust the burning in the Cooker firebox to more than 800°C!
  • Debbie Donde-Labinjo, – now an architect with MACE Group Ltd in London. As a young student architect at PLANNING, she developed a keen interest in the Community Cooker. One day Debbie walked into my PLANNING office waving a slip of paper with a big smile on her face – there it was in black and white was a recorded temperature of slightly over 800°C. This was to be our first on many encounters with Société Générale de Surveillance. 
  • Amos Wachira – now the Foundation’s Construction Manager.  I chose Amos to lead the building of the first ‘field’ Community Cooker. Amos had worked for my wife Linda and me as a builder at our house for several years. He has played a leading role in improvements and modifications of the Cooker ever since.

Building a Community Cooker with a fire box, a combustion chamber and a chimney that would result in the successful combustion of the rubbish at temperatures high enough to eliminate noxious fumes – at least to WHO Standards, and later to E.U. and North American Environmental Standards would be a challenge. Eight times we built, dismantled and rebuilt the firebox and combustion chamber at the PLANNING house site– each time with a better air flow leading to higher temperatures and cleaner smoke going up the chimney.

Our first Community Cooker was built in the middle of the slums of Kibra in Laini Saba in 2008. Given life all over again I would have looked for a site that was more easily accessible, less public, and under firmer management.  We now know that although the Cooker is a basic technology that needs little maintenance, the operation of it does require strong management.  Schools, hospitals, and tourist lodges are more successful sites than community groups in low income settings. But our initial success at Laini Saba resulted in the Community Cooker getting international recognition and winning many international awards from 2008-2012. And in 2010, the Community Cooker Foundation was created and my dream started becoming a true reality.