Hi, what are you looking for?
High-Tech Mirrors Used in Solar Power Plants Get New International Consortium
Doing the Right Thing for Wind & Solar Power in USA
What One Man Can Do About The Climate — More Than Dream
Small Generators Aren’t As Good As Solar For Emergency Preparedness (Part 3)
Small Generators Aren’t As Good As Solar For Emergency Preparedness (Part 2)
NREL Wind Energy Program Demonstrates Innovation & Leadership Throughout 2021
Doing the Right Thing for Wind & Solar Power in USA
Seagoing Energy Storage Ship Meets The Offshore Wind Transmission Challenge
Shipping Liquid Hydrogen Would Be At Least 5 Times As Expensive As LNG Per Unit Of Energy
Space Age Wind Power For Ro-Ro Ships: 20% Carbon Savings Ho!
Renewables Provided 92.3% Of Kenya’s Electricity Generation in 2020!
Some Good News: 10 Countries Generate Almost 100% Renewable Electricity
Looking At Geothermal Energy Through An International Lens
Idea For Tesla Energy: Look At Austin’s Whisper Valley For Your Next Solar Neighborhood
Using Direct Lithium Extraction To Secure U.S. Supplies
Electric Vehicle Batteries Aren’t Really “The New Oil”
Gotion Signs 200 GWh LFP Battery Deal With Major Publicly Traded US Automaker
13 New Electric Vehicle Battery Factories Planned in USA within Next 5 Years — Fact of the Week
Small Generators Aren’t As Good As Solar For Emergency Preparedness (Part 3)
Seagoing Energy Storage Ship Meets The Offshore Wind Transmission Challenge
Microsoft, Schneider Electric, & LG Solar USA Come Together For The Footprint Project
Decarbonizing the Grids with Demand Response
How To Bring More Clean Energy Into Our Homes
Modern Infrastructure Means a Modern Electric Grid
This Integrated Energy Solution Makes EV Charging More Affordable (And More Sustainable)
Electric Everything Part 3 (More Things We Left Out of Parts 2 & 3)
New Energy Efficient Vanadium Material Looks Like Scotch Tape, Acts Like Planet Hero
NYC To Electrify All New Buildings, Oil & Gas Reserves Threatened By Extreme Weather — Climate Nexus News
Researchers Publish 1st Comprehensive Building Stock Characterization Study for the United States
Solar Echo Lighting Introduces Flower-Shaped Lamp That Mimics The Way The Sun Shines
Charging Across the Nullabor — Plug the Gap in the Big Lap
Electric Vehicle Batteries Aren’t Really “The New Oil”
Electric Everything Part 3 (More Things We Left Out of Parts 2 & 3)
Peak Oil & Coal Demand Means Peak Shipping Demand Too
Another Ford Mustang Mach-E Buyer Is Having Issues With Dealers
Engwe EP-2 Pro Folding E-Bike — CleanTechnica Review
Get A Crazy Deal On A Portable Power Station We Recently Reviewed
My First 2 Weeks with Tesla’s “Feature Complete” Full Self Driving
The GEN3 Flex E-Bike — CleanTechnica Review
Fuell Flluid E-Bike Has Twice The Batteries & Twice The Fun
Charging Across the Nullabor — Plug the Gap in the Big Lap
Peak Oil & Coal Demand Means Peak Shipping Demand Too
Washington Post Piece On Tesla FSD Beta Is Superb, Responses Not So Much
Engwe EP-2 Pro Folding E-Bike — CleanTechnica Review
Get A Crazy Deal On A Portable Power Station We Recently Reviewed
34% Plugin Vehicle Share In German Auto Market!
Plugin Vehicles = 23% Of New Car Sales In France
EV Charging Stations — Level 2 Charging
Netherlands Reaches 28% BEV Share In November!
Most Autos Sold In Sweden Are Now Plugin EVs – Over 54% In November
Engwe EP-2 Pro Folding E-Bike — CleanTechnica Review
Get A Crazy Deal On A Portable Power Station We Recently Reviewed
My First 2 Weeks with Tesla’s “Feature Complete” Full Self Driving
The GEN3 Flex E-Bike — CleanTechnica Review
Fuell Flluid E-Bike Has Twice The Batteries & Twice The Fun
Volkswagen Group — In-Depth Conference Call Highlights Company’s Focus On Transition
Bill McKibben On Unions, Tesla, & Elon Musk — CleanTechnica Interview
How To Watch & Listen To Tesla Q3 Earnings Call — Most Useful Livestream
Tesla Sales & Future of Tesla Discussion with Ride the Lightning, Starman, & EVANNEX
Tesla’s Q3 Deliveries (241,300) Just 1,300 (0.5%) More Than My April Forecast (240,000)
According to Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency (EMA), the major contributors to deforestation are:
Tobacco remains one of Zimbabwe’s major foreign currency earners, along with gold and nickel. The levels of deforestation mean that a serious forest preservation and reforestation initiative has become critical. Zimbabwe loses about 330,000 hectares of forests annually. Forest and woodland resources now cover 45% of the country’s land area, down from 53% in 2014.
Rowen Meda, who was born and bred in rural Zimbabwe, recently came face to face with the devastating effects of deforestation. At the start of the pandemic in 2020, during the first hard lockdowns, Rowen spent most of his time in his rural village. It was during this time that he noticed that it was becoming increasingly difficult for his mom and her neighbors to find firewood for cooking due to the massive deforestation in the area over the past couple of decades.
Rowen, who has always been environmentally conscious and had been looking to be more active in environmental activism, decided to look for more sustainable alternatives to help his mom and the community. That is when he started exploring several solutions using locally available resources. He then started to experiment with bamboo. He is now looking to scale up the production of several bamboo-based products.
Based in Nzvimbo Village, Mazowe, Zimbabwe, Rowen Meda’s Mutenga Bamboo uses bamboo, which matures much faster than indigenous trees, to make charcoal for cooking, heating, and tobacco curing. As part of its commitment to promote the circular economy, Mutenga Bamboo incorporate waste cardboard boxes as well as waste sawdust in its production process. Bamboo can be harvested for use in about 3-6 years. Producing charcoal from bamboo forests has been said to take pressure off fragile forest resources used for fuel, heating, and firewood.
Zimbabwe has been facing acute foreign currency shortages for most of the past 2 decades. This has resulted in periodic petrol and diesel shortages. There has been a drive to try and increase the production of goods locally under import substitution initiatives to save foreign currency and to also increase exports to earn more foreign currency. There has been an uproar over some of the goods Zimbabwe is spending some of its scarce foreign currency on.
In 2020, a report said that Zimbabwe spends $105m on toothpicks, chewing gum, and diaper imports. Toothpicks are mostly imported from China. There were a lot of jokes and memes on how the country can’t even make toothpicks. Mutenga Bamboo is now scaling up its locally made bamboo toothpicks to fill this gap and help reduce the import bill. Bamboo has natural anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.
Mutenga Bamboo was recently announced as one of the winners of the second batch of Circular Valley’s circular economy accelerator. Rowen and his colleague are currently in Germany until February of next year as part of the program. Mutenga Bamboo has also just introduced a new range of pens that use bamboo barrels instead of the usual plastic barrels. I hope they get to scale up their project quickly.
Image of toothpicks courtesy of Mutenga Bamboo, featured image by Clement Souchet on Unsplash.
Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai has been fascinated with batteries since he was in primary school. As part of his High School Physics class he had to choose an elective course. He picked the renewable energy course and he has been hooked ever since. At university he continued to explore materials with applications in the energy space and ending up doing a PhD involving the study of radiation damage in High Temperature Gas Cooled Nuclear Reactors. He has since transitioned to work in the Solar and Storage industry and his love for batteries has driven him to obsess about electric vehicles.
#1 most loved electric vehicle, solar energy, and battery news & analysis site in the world. Support our work today!
Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.
Mature unripe green bananas can be milled into a fine flour that can be used in place of the traditional wheat flour. Green banana...
Leather remains a lucrative commodity and a big problem for many automotive brands, which are being linked to the environmental degradation of the Amazon...
When I was in primary school, in Mutare, Zimbabwe, a fairly large dam was being build in our province, Manicaland. Osbourne Dam, on the Odzi...
“Thanks for keeping my car alive while I was away. I didn’t park in the best spot and I was going to have 40+...
Copyright © 2021 CleanTechnica. The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by and do not necessarily represent the views of CleanTechnica, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.