Against Energy Poverty:
Innovator Turns Waterweed Into Energy to Relieve Women From Dirty Cooking
Written by: Lynnette Masudio | Filmed by Richard Mugambe
Monday, April 28, 2025
Under the scorching heat of the midday sun, 23-year-old Fred Galubuzi chops a heap of fresh water hyacinth into cubical pieces and places them into a grinder.
Galabuzi is part of a team of young people that are changing energy prospects in the villages of Matugga, about 20 kilometers north of Uganda’s capital Kampala.
The shredded water weed is poured into a brick-and-mortar pool where it is mixed with cow dung into a pungent semi-solid organic matter. The uneven mix is then poured into a bio bag where it decomposes further to produce methane.
Fred Galabuzi chops water hyacinth for biogas production. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
The group, led by Amanda Natukunda, then pumps this gas into pressurized cylinders and distributes them to the local markets for domestic use. Called Eco Erudites, this initiative is one of the latest in Uganda’s clean energy innovations.
Through it, Natukunda believes that farmers are getting an extended value out of their organic waste and also clearing Uganda’s water bodies of a major menace, while serving communities with cheaper, cleaner and sustainable cooking energy.
“Eco Erudites is a social enterprise that is converting organic waste into environmentally friendly products, sustainable cooking fuel, biogas, and organic fertilizers,” she says
A staffer pumps biogas into a pressurized container at Eco Erudites. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
In Uganda, about 90% of the population rely on biomass which includes firewood and charcoal as the primary source of fuel.
Biomass dependency is causing significant pressure on the country’s forest cover. According to independent researchers, the country is now facing a projected future wood biomass deficit of over 100 million tonnes annually.
Datasets at the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) show that Uganda has experienced significant forest loss equivalent to 1.1 million hectares in the last ten years. A significant volume of the loss is attributed to domestic energy.
Much of the population is energy-poor. There is still a lack of affordable, accessible alternative cooking solutions. Most households especially in urban areas rely on charcoal as the sole means of energy.According to research by The Petroleum Authority of Uganda in 2023, 89% of the country’s population relies on biomass as their primary source of fuel.
The unclean energy is further exposing particularly girls and women (whom cooking is a household domain), to respiratory infections especially in developing countries like Uganda.
“Yet everything needed to produce clean energy and in the most cost-effective way is right here,” Natukunda says, emphasizing that this is exactly how she pitched to the UNICEF Youth Innovation Challenge in 2023, which gave the group the first seed capital to start the enterprise.
A staffer from Eco Erudites seen collecting waterweed at Port Bell on the shores of Lake Victoria. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
The Challenge called for ideas from young people that address the impending climate disaster while solving wider social challenges.
The major challenge Natukunda and team dared to solve was water hyacinth, on Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest freshwater lake.
First spotted on Lake Kyoga in 1988, the invasive weed has been spreading on all water bodies in the country. Around 2013, media reports indicated that about 6300 tonnes of the water hyacinth was invading Lake Victoria per day, lake Kyoga ,River Nile are some of the water bodies that are experiencing this infestation first hand
It is hard to tell how the South American waterweed ended up in Uganda. However, experts suspect that it was probably introduced as an ornamental plant of garden ponds due to its beautiful flowers.
The lack of enemies in the tropics, abundant space, and favorable weather together with the nutrients in African fresh water bodies has made it spread like wildfire.
During its peak invasion of the lake, the water weed with its characteristic thick floating reduces clean water supply, and causes difficulty in water extraction and navigation, increasing costs of transportation and reduces fish catch.
Mutagubya Jimmy, 62, a local fisherman stationed around Port Bell near Kampala, and along the shore of Lake Victoria has lived a more than 20-year bad experience with the hyacinth.
“Before, we used to catch lots of fish and would navigate the lake easily. But now, it’s really hard because the fish go to deep waters and are hard to locate because of the weed. We had been looking for a way to deal with it,” he says, praising the weed collection by the Eco Erudites team.
Fisherman Jimmy Mutagubya in a canoe on a fishing spree. Photo by Richard Mugambe
Natukunda, who is also an environmental scientist “looked at the water hyacinth and saw more than just a menace” because “when subjected to anaerobic digestion, it gives off biogas, a clean and sustainable alternative to charcoal and firewood”.
At the Matugga plant, the mixture of waterweed and dung is fed and sealed into a biogas bladder, a rubber material which also relies on radiation from the sun to ferment the matter.
The accumulating gas inflates the bladder, and it is from there that it is packaged into gas cylinders for the local market.
When the gas is extracted, the remaining organic matter is shared to farmers to use as crop fertilizer.
Eco Erudites also trains local farmers and supports them in setting up biogas facilities at a subsidized amount to clean up their cooking.
Biogas bladders at Eco Erudites facility in Matugga outside Kampala. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
Biogas alternatives are cheaper, and present households with access to clean modern and affordable energy, saving women from the respiratory infections that come with dirty cooking.
What makes this innovation unique from others is that the biogas produced is packaged in gas cylinders for easy use by the final consumer, which is not the case with other forms of biogas
It means that people don’t have to cut down trees to make charcoal to meet the demands of Uganda’s rapidly urbanizing communities and reduces the importation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, which comes with hazardous oil exploration projects.
“Everything changed when we started using the biogas, it was cleaner ,convenient and faster, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to charcoal or firewood, ” says Kimbugwe.
Ready-to-go biogas cylinders. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
Like any innovative startup, Eco Erudites has faced its share of hurdles, “from setting up the plant and purchasing machinery to acquiring the specialized cylinders needed for storing biogas, it’s all capital intensive.”Natkunda admits.
Currently, the enterprise produces only two biogas cylinders per day, a number they hope to increase significantly.
“If we could scale up to 10 cylinders a day, that would be a game changer,” she says. “But expansion requires funding, and that’s something we are actively seeking.”
Another challenge is public awareness. Selling biogas isn’t just about putting it on the market. It requires educating the public into buying the idea
People need to see the benefits before they can switch from what they’re used to,build trust and interest among the consumers, they need to understand why biogas is a better option.
Amanda Natukunda, the team lead at Eco Erudites examines a gas cylinder before its packaged for the market. Photo by Richard Mugambe.
Despite the obstacles, Natukunda and her team remain ambitious. The goal is to have every household in Uganda using packaged biogas.
The company has also secured a trading license and works closely with Biogas Solutions Uganda, an organization that supports biogas enterprises in the country.
This makes their product more legitimate, safe to use and trustworthy by the public since it’s tested, trusted and approved, giving people confidence to adopt
What started as an idea in a youth innovation challenge is now a ray of hope for clean energy in Uganda.
We are Africa's first solution journalism newsroom producing immersive stories on innovations, models and systems that are working around Africa. We also work to produce alternative solutions stories to challenge negative narratives about the continent.