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United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Sustainable Development

Waste to Energy

Wecac Company Limited (
Private sector
)
#SDGAction33776
    Description
    Intro

    This practice is about processing charcoal using waste biomass. We use coconut waste( shells and husks), sawdust, rice husk which we carbonize, and briquette to be used as home cooking fuel

    Implementation of the Project/Activity

    Currently, we use manual brick-making machines, we rely on public transport to freight in waste biomass. The waste is carbonized and a binder such as starch is added. Using the manual brick molding machine, we convert the waste biomass into charcoal briquettes. The team spends hours on their time to undertake the project. The youth engaged to fetch the waste are paid and taught the practice with the hope that they can duplicate it on their own on a small scale.

    Results/Outputs/Impacts

    At the moment we are able to process 20 sacs of charcoal briquettes daily which we sell to commercial food vendors. Using the brick molding machines yield rather large briquettes that are also suitable for commercial food vendors

    Enabling factors and constraints

    Enabling factors include the Promoters passion for the trade and its impact on the environment. The ready availability of waste and market for charcoal briquettes. Pricing of the product and the efficiency and suitability of the charcoal briquettes. Constraints are the lack of company transport and freight in of waste which has been overcome using waste disposal operators

    Sustainability and replicability

    Elements in place include ready availability of waste stream suitable for the project. The ready market for the charcoal briquettes. This could be replicated in other areas especially in the areas known for felling trees for firewood. A briquette line could be installed or a distribution outlet to supply charcoal briquettes could be set up using the already existing charcoal retailers to carry our modern engineered charcoal briquettes. Most of the charcoal used in Ghana is sold in Accra and Kumasi. Having a ready supply in those two cities could help our objectives

    Other sources of information

    None available yet. However, a company in Ghana, Zaacoal, is doing a similar project successfully

    COVID-19 Impact

    Covid-19 lockdown and restricted movement reduce our ability to fetch waste easily. The general slowdown of economic and trade activity has impacted food vendors who are our customers at the moment.

    N/A
    N/A
    No progress reports have been submitted. Please sign in and click here to submit one.
    False
    This initiative does not yet fulfil the SMART criteria.
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    Timeline
    13 April 2019 (start date)
    31 December 2022 (date of completion)
    Entity
    Wecac Company Ltd
    Ongoing
    No
    SDGs
    1 3 5 6 7 13
    Other beneficiaries

    Current beneficiaries are commercial users, but in due course, we shall use a briquetting machine we have just acquired that will yield coal pot size briquettes for household use

    More information
    Countries
    Ghana
    Ghana
    Contact Information

    Romanus, Chief Executive