The New Idea

Nigeria’s slaughterhouses produce emissions that pollute the surrounding air and water supply. The dirt-poor communities that are down-wind and down-river from slaughterhouses are overwhelmed by this pollution. In response, Joseph created a reactor that treats slaughterhouse waste and, instead of churning excess methane into the atmosphere, captures the biogas for use as cooking fuel. Basing the reactors in the communities most affected by slaughterhouse waste, he incorporated local priorities into their construction and function and designed accompanying community engagement programs that provide employment opportunities.

Joseph developed his unique design by improving conventional anaerobic digestion technologies. His reactor’s anaerobic fixed-film mechanism ensures that all effluents are captured and properly used; waste is treated and gaseous by-products are captured, treated, and sold by local entrepreneurs as domestic cooking gas. Once processed, the sludge is used as environmentally-friendly organic fertilizer. The biogas plant is financially viable and sustainable.

The Cows to Kilowatts model is prepared to replicate its strategy across Nigeria and other African countries, including Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa.

The Problem

In Nigeria, little attention is paid to environmental pollution. Nigeria’s environmental policy is poorly implemented. Its policies on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are poorly enforced.

One of the most significant sources of surface and groundwater pollution is slaughterhouse effluent, which flows directly into open drains, polluting groundwater and rivers while solid waste is piled mountain-high nearby. Water pollution levels around slaughterhouses are higher than acceptable international thresholds for food processing industries. Measured in biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), an indicator of organic water pollution, the international threshold for discharge into rivers is 80 milligrams per liter. In contrast, effluent from Nigerian slaughterhouses has measured as high as 4,000 milligrams per liter of BOD. The decomposing solid waste from slaughterhouses releases high levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the air. Although governments have collected user fees from butchers to provide pollution control and enforce effluent standards, the problem continues.

Drawn to the area by jobs at the slaughterhouse and the availably of inexpensive and plentiful sources of protein (discarded animal parts and blood), communities often spring up near slaughterhouses. Poor nutrition, pollution, and poverty combine to make the health indices for these communities the lowest in the country. These communities are rarely, if ever, engaged in the formulation of solutions. In the past, well-meaning projects have introduced new technologies that failed to recognize the interconnectedness of the local people to the slaughterhouses and caused significant disruptions in local economies.

Anaerobic biogas technologies, designed to produce small amounts of energy for domestic use, offered a glimmer of hope for processing the waste, but they had a high failure rate due to odor, low efficiency, and long retention times.

The Strategy

Joseph began to work on slaughterhouse waste from the perspective of a concerned citizen—he observed the daily effects of the waste on surrounding communities. When he realized the pollution load of the waste exceeded national standards, he drew on his academic training as a civil engineer to design a sustainable system to treat the waste. Joseph’s initial design, based on an anaerobic treatment plant, was a finalist in the 2003 World Bank Global Development Marketplace Competition in Washington D.C. However, his original reactor still released greenhouse gases as a by-product. Back at the drawing board, he partnered with the Biogas Technology Research Centre in Bangkok, Thailand and designed a unique anaerobic fixed-film reactor that could treat slaughterhouse waste more efficiently and produce commercial quantities of biogas and organic fertilizer by capturing the methane by-product rather than releasing it as a greenhouse gas.

After conducting an economic and technical appraisal, Joseph engaged community members through workshops and education programs to determine the best implementation. He led discussions about the dangers of slaughterhouse pollution, its effect on the health of residents, and the potential of the new technology. He also identified partners that could provide community business services based on the biogas plant. For example, the Farmers Association could distribute the organic fertilizer and train farmers in its use, the Butchers’ Association could collect fees from users of the facility, and the Market Women’s Association could sell the bottled biogas for cooking fuel. (The bottled biogas is expected to sell at a quarter of the price of conventional bottled cooking gas.) Finally, local youth were given priority for employment at the reactor during and after construction.

Joseph incorporated Cows to Kilowatts Partnership Ltd. to manage project income and replicate the model. Partnering with the Federal Ministry of Environment, he secured funding from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to build a pilot plant in Ibadan, home to one of the busiest slaughterhouses in the region. Funding for the other plants will be made available once the pilot plant is completed. Cows to Kilowatts Partnership Ltd. employs 10 full-time staff and several short-term consultants, and has 8 volunteers. The pilot plant is being built on land donated by the local government council and relies on community labor for nontechnical jobs.

Joseph has received inquiries from Cameroon to expand the model there, and hopes to spread it throughout the region with the help of the Economic Community of West African States. Additionally, the World Bank and other multilateral and international institutions are providing support.

As an innovative technology, Joseph’s biogas plant has the potential to revolutionize slaughterhouse waste treatment globally. His partnership with the Biogas Technology Research Centre provides an important link to the international community and a scientific endorsement. He is now adapting the technology to treat cassava production waste—a potentially enormous market in West Africa as Nigeria is currently the fifth largest producer of cassava globally.

The Person

While studying civil engineering—Joseph is a chartered civil and structural engineer—he became aware of the effects of urban development on the environment and decided to specialize in water resources and environmental engineering. Joseph subsequently earned a PhD in civil engineering. After graduating, he lived in Bodija Estate, an upscale neighborhood of Ibadan.

But he also saw the urban poor living less than 500 meters from the largest slaughterhouse in southern Nigeria. After working for two decades as a consulting engineer on water and sanitation projects with the World Bank and the African Development Bank, he had developed the technical competence to address the issue. He submitted a proposal for slaughterhouse waste treatment, which won an award at an international competition, the Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development (SEED) International Awards (2005). SEED is supported by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, UNDP, United Nations Environment Program, Global Compact, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States.

This was a turning point for Joseph. He realized he was uniquely poised to address the threats faced by people living near slaughterhouses, as well as the broader threat of climate change, which is worsened by the highly potent methane gas in slaughterhouse effluent.