肯尼亚工厂制茶不使用柴火

AS IT IS 2015-08-15 Kenyan Factory Making Tea Without Firewood 肯尼亚工厂制茶不使用柴火

There is a change in the air at the Tea Factory in Thika, Kenya. It is free of the dark smoke that rises from the boilers¹ of Kenya's other tea factories.

The Makomboki company has begun to use a less costly² and more environmentally friendly fuel.  Instead of burning wood, the tea maker³ is burning briquettes made of plant and animal material waste.

The Kenya Tea Development Authority supervises 66 tea factories in the country.  Makomboki is the only one that does not use firewood in tea production.

Its factory is deep in central Kenya's hilly and fertile tea-growing Muranga county. The Makomboki employees there feed the factory's boilers with briquettes of macadamia, cashew and rice husks – the dry outer covering of the seeds -– mixed with sawdust.

John Gitau is the manager at the factory. He expressed excitement about the change in fuel at the factory. He said Makomboki has not used a single cubic meter of firewood in the last six months.

From firewood to briquettes 

In 2010, the International Trade Center started a training project. It aimed to teach Kenyan tea makers⁴ new production methods that would help limit the release of climate change gases.

As a result, Makomboki company leaders decided⁵ to change their fuel source from firewood to briquettes. Since then, the factory has increased its use of alternative fuels and stopped depending on firewood.

Taylors of Harrogate is a Makomboki client. The British tea and coffee company helped the Kenyan factory change fuels. It connected Makomboki with the Living Earth Foundation. The non-governmental group donated the machines to make the briquettes.

The husks for the briquettes come from other factories within Muranga and Kiambu counties. The sawdust comes from mills near the tea factory.

John Gitau said it takes the factory six months to produce about 2.5 million kilograms of tea. During that time, their boilers would use up to 10,000 cubic meters of wood – or about 30,000 trees worth.

He said by trading firewood for sawdust and briquettes, Makomboki alone will have saved 60,000 trees in one year. And, he said, if all the factories in Kenya did this a lot of trees would be saved.

Better for factories, farmers

Mary Njenga is a post-doctoral fellow of bioenergy at the World Agroforestry Center. She welcomes the use of sawdust in the making of fuel briquettes. She said burning sawdust is efficient.

"The temperatures inside the boilers of tea factories are so high,” she said, “they are able to more fully⁶ burn the particulate⁷ matter and the carbon dioxide so that little is released.”

Makomboki manager John Gitau said tea factories that continue to use firewood can't ignore their own part in the adverse⁸ effects of climate change.

The move away from firewood also makes financial sense.

Mr. Gitau said changing to fuel briquettes has reduced Makomboki's energy costs by nearly half.

The factory used to spend $542,000 per year on firewood.  Now, the introduction of briquettes has cut the energy bill to $295,600.

John Gitau said representatives from other factories have visited Makomboki to learn more about the alternative fuel. He said he hopes they will follow his company’s lead.

Words in This Story

briquette – n.  a block of compressed charcoal⁹ or coal dust used as fuel.

husk –n. a thing, dry layer that covers some seeds and fruits

scaled up – phrasal verb. to make something larger in size, than it used to be

adverse – adj. not good

1 boilers   

锅炉，烧水器，水壶( boiler的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Even then the boilers often burst or came apart at the seams. 甚至那时的锅炉也经常从焊接处爆炸或裂开。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史
• The clean coal is sent to a crusher and the boilers. 干净的煤送入破碎机和锅炉。

2 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

3 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

4 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

7 particulate   

adj.微小的；n.微粒，粒子

参考例句：

• A special group was organized to dig up the particulate of the case.成立了一个专门小组来查明该案件的各个细节。
• Lungs retain relatively insoluble particulate material.肺脏内留有不溶解的颗粒物质。

8 adverse   

adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的

参考例句：

• He is adverse to going abroad.他反对出国。
• The improper use of medicine could lead to severe adverse reactions.用药不当会产生严重的不良反应。

9 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。