Over one and a half decade ago, Chatthe family ventured into sugar milling business in Kibos, Kisumu County.
The urge to achieve environmental sustainability has seen this vision turned into a circular economy, with the set up of assorted factories to utilize and process byproducts from the sugar factory into other products.
Through Chatthe Group of Companies, the firm has developed a Circular Economy model in the sugar industry currently being implemented as a first of its kind globally.
‘Our aim with this model is achieving the Group’s goals of ensuring economic viability, social acceptability and environmental sustainability; reducing the carbon foot print through green manufacturing and adding value to waste in the agro-industrial sector’-joyce opondo
The now giant conglomerate is situated in Kisumu County, just at the outskirts of the city limits in the agricultural/industrial zone in Kibos, Muhoroni Sub-County.
The major byproducts from sugar factories include; bagasse, molasses, cane tops, filter muds, crop residue and boiler fly ash.
Circular economy
According to the group’s Corporate Affairs Manager Joyce Opondo, this circular economy initiative is utilizing these byproducts to manufacture other products hence reducing wastes.
With substantial inhouse availability of molasses, bagasse and filter mud, the factory has diversified its business by establishing downstream entities for value addition such as Kibos Paper and, Packaging Limited, Kibos Distillers Limited, Kibos Sugar Refineries Limited, and Kibos Fertilizers Ltd.
“Our aim with this model is achieving the Group’s goals of ensuring economic viability, social acceptability and environmental sustainability; reducing the carbon foot print through green manufacturing and adding value to waste in the agro-industrial sector,” says Ms Opondo.
She says the initiative has gone beyond environmental conservation to creating more jobs in the sector, hence enhancing economic growth of the region and the country.
With the completion and operationalization of the fertilizer plant, the group of companies will be fully environmentally sustainable, to ensure zero waste.
Opondo says the initiative is expected to attract industrial tourism globally.
She says the model is a green project that enhances carbon sinking through ensuring large and wide scale planting of sugarcane across over 20,000 hector currently, with high potential for growth.
Environmental conservation
The model utilizes renewable bio-mass (bagasse) for electricity generation to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) from use of fossil fuels thereby helping retard climate change, with about 70 per cent less impact on the environment.
Bagasse being used for production of virgin pulp and paper is inhibiting the reduction of forests which is working towards the resolutions of COP 26 in greening the earth and reducing the degree of heat.
According to Opondo, bagasse has for long been a source of leachate which is a very dangerous pollution risk to the environment.
But now, instead of disposing it, it is being utilized by the factory to produce high value products for the local and export markets.
The factory is also utilizing molasses to produce high quality alcohol, instant sanitizers and eco-fuel which reduces dependency on Kerosene from Fossil Fuels.
“This clean energy, in addition to capturing carbon dioxide which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, in alcohol distillation, and treating it for industrial use, hence reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere,” says Opondo.
Fertilizer
Opondo says the use of waste streams for production of fertilizer fulfills the cradle to cradle circular economy which is the direction the world is heading in its endeavour to control global warming and climate change.
Production of fertilizer, Opondo says, will also enhance food security in the country and reduce the balance of trade through import substitution.
In 2007, the company commissioned Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries Ltd (KSAIL), a modern 1650 tonnes of cane per day (TCD) Greenfield sugar cane factory with three Mega Watts (MW) co-gen plant at Kibos.
Within five years of operations, the factory’s crushing capacity was expanded to 3,500 TCD and her co-gen capacity by 15MW to 18MW.
The factory has a nucleus farm of over 2,000 acres and out-growers producing cane on approximately 20,000 hectors in Kisumu, Kericho and Nandi counties.
And with the aim of achieving environmental sustainability, the factory has established downstream projects which have all been brought under the Chatthe Group label.
Sugar refinery
Recently, Ms Opondo says the firm embarked on improvement on her plant efficiency in order to bring steam on sugarcane down from 45 to 32 and save bagasse so that the paper plant can have more bagasse by undertaking a number of activities which includes cncrease of crushing capacity to 4,500 TCD.
“We have upgraded the old boiler from 37 tons to 50 tons while a single field Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) has also been added along with an existing Mechanical Dust Collector (MDC) on the old boiler and a third field ESP on the 15 MW boiler,” she said.
She says that steam saving from 45 per cent to 34 per cent on cane has reduced the load on the boiler with better environmental performance.
This initiative, she added, has also seen Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) level in stack emissions improved to well within the required norms.
And with these interventions, she says the factory has recorded increasing overall sugar recovery as there is efficient mill extraction and control of losses, as well as conservation of energy achieved and power demand reduced.
The entire plant, she says, is now operating through Distributor Control System (DCS) with various process automation equipment to have better operational control and results.
Due to increased importation of refined sugar, in 2016 the factory set up a sugar refinery with a capacity of150,000 Metric Tons per annum of industrial grade sugar.
For KSRL to be viable, Opondo says, it is expedient to import cheap raw sugar from the world market and refine it for the local market.
“We are engaging the government and we hope that soon this project will be in operation, generating employment, taxes and ensuring stability of the domestic sugar industry as was envisaged at the outset,” she says.
At the sugar factory’s inception, Ms Opondo says the demand for molasses was very low, with the price going as low as Shs1,000 per ton.
This, she says, forced the firm to consider an alternative use, leading to the establishment of Kibos Distillers Ltd.
Currently, the distillery has a capacity of 50,000 litres per day (LPD).
The paper factory
The factory produces paper from both waste paper and bagasse pulp and its capacity at commissioning was 80 tons of Kraft Paper per day and 12 tons of soda ash together with10 tons of caustic and 80 tons of packaging material viz cartons and corrugated sheets.
Today, the capacity of the paper plant includes 130 tons of Kraft paper per day (80 gsm to 250gsm), 30 tons per day of Soda Ash, 22 tons of Caustic per day, 120 tons of Packaging Material per month and up to 80 tons of carton boxes.
With the installation of Chlorine Oxidation (CIO2) bleaching plant, the factory will soon be able them to produce white paper.
Opondo says they also convert up to 50 tons of paper to make corrugated sheets, 3-5 ply boxes for the horticulture industry, floriculture industry and other carton boxes.
“We also have an installed capacity of 500 kg for tableware production. The tableware are very environmentally friendly. This product line is the only one of its kind in Africa.’ She says.
Due to the large consumption of paper bags within the group for packaging of various products, the firm is establishing a paper bags production facility named Kibos Bags under Kibos Paper and Packaging with the production capacity being 40,000bags per day expandable to 80,000bags per day of 50kg bags.
Kibos Bags, she says, has a well-established two parallel recycle granulation plant to recycle all waste being generated during the process and also to collect fresh waste from outside to process into machine granules followed by bags.
“To mitigate the current climate change and soil infertility, we have decided to utilize the 40,000 tons of material waste to produce organic fertilizer which would reduce acidic conditions in the farms, add value and support our farmers to grow improved varieties of sugarcane, and increase their incomes,” says Ms Opondo.
The fertilizer factory production capacity is 120 metric tons per day using compost of vinasse from the distillery, boiler ash from the co-gen boiler, press mud from sugar mill and nitrogen with added ingredients.
