Africa Innovates Magazine - Flipbook - Page 56
WASTE & RECYCLING
Photo credit: Yaaka Waste
INCINERATING
WASTE WHILE
COMBATTING
OPEN AIR
POLLUTION
IN ZAMBIA
Chimfwembe Mutale, a chemical engineer
based in Zambia, is the CEO of Yaaka Waste
management, which develops and markets
portable incinerators that keep and reuse
the gases emitted during combustion.
This company was born from an observation
– the waste treatment system must absolutely
be redesigned to be more sustainable. Open
landfills and burning of waste releases gases,
such as CO2 or nitrogen dioxide, into the
atmosphere, which contributes significantly to
global warming.
Chimfwembe, with other students from
his university, sought to develop a waste
management system that would reduce both
soil and air pollution without requiring too
much financial investment, so that this system
could be scaled up and implemented on a
larger scale. In 2015, after bringing together
several people around the project and raising
the necessary funds for the development of
the company, Mutale founded Yaaka Waste
Management.
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They then developed, over a period of almost
four years, a portable incinerator equipped
with the technology to recover the gases
emitted during combustion.
The company’s objectives are ambitious:
putting an end to open incineration by
disseminating
their
technology
would,
according to Chimfwembe, considerably
improve air quality and limit global warming.
“If we could scale up the use of machines like
ours instead of open-air waste incineration,
we could reduce the CO2 emissions linked to
incineration (which today represent 25% of the
country’s carbon emissions) by 5%.“
Yaaka Waste Management is already achieving
positive results with its first incinerators.
Photo credit: Yaaka Waste
“Mainstreaming
zero emission
incineration can
make it possible
to achieve the
objectives set
by the Paris
Agreement to limit
global warming at
2° by 2030.”
Chimfwembe Mutale,
Yaaka Waste Management CEO
SHOWCASING AFRICAN CLIMATE CHAMPIONS
