By Roxanne Reid
Once you’ve been out on one of Chobe Game Lodge’s electric safari vehicles or boats, you might be inspired to find out more about the eco efforts of this lodge in Botswana. And if you go behind the manicured lawns, stuffed sofas and relaxed guests to the bowels of the lodge, where all the work and environmental activity happens, chances are you’ll get to meet Albert Ndereki.
Once you’ve been out on one of Chobe Game Lodge’s electric safari vehicles or boats, you might be inspired to find out more about the eco efforts of this lodge in Botswana. And if you go behind the manicured lawns, stuffed sofas and relaxed guests to the bowels of the lodge, where all the work and environmental activity happens, chances are you’ll get to meet Albert Ndereki.
Now in his sixties, Albert helped build the original Southern Sun Hotel in 1972, and worked there until it closed in 1977 for reasons related to the Rhodesian bush war. After Zimbabwe’s independence it reopened in 1983, Albert returned in 1984 and has been here ever since, the most long-serving staff member of a lodge that’s now part of Desert & Delta Safaris.
There’s little he doesn’t know about the lodge’s drive to reduce, recycle and reuse. ‘At first we were just starting and making some mistakes and learning,’ he admits, but he’s proud of the lodge’s 2012 ecotourism certification from Botswana Tourism. He points to the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) prominently displayed for all the staff to see. It deals with seven key points like solid waste, water, effluents and emissions, and the natural environment.
There’s little he doesn’t know about the lodge’s drive to reduce, recycle and reuse. ‘At first we were just starting and making some mistakes and learning,’ he admits, but he’s proud of the lodge’s 2012 ecotourism certification from Botswana Tourism. He points to the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) prominently displayed for all the staff to see. It deals with seven key points like solid waste, water, effluents and emissions, and the natural environment.
Albert Ndereki in front of the fish pond he built in 2008
He shows us how plastics are collected to be recycled into decking such as on the boardwalks at the lodge. Cardboard boxes are collapsed and returned to the supplier, cans compacted and glass crushed to powder in a machine Albert calls the ‘green mamba’. The powder is mixed with cement to make strong bricks for some of the lodge’s small building projects.
Food waste is collected and processed in the biogas plant, which Albert likens to ‘a beast, with a mouth, throat and stomach’. First the waste is sorted. ‘Things like bones, oranges and onions can’t go into the mixing tank,’ he explains. Then it’s ground up and mixed with river water. At the end of a complex process of tanks and pipes it produces methane gas to use for cooking. ‘We don’t produce enough yet, so we still use LPG, but it will happen,’ he says.
Anything that can’t be used for biogas or sent for recycling ends up in an incinerator Albert calls Lucifer – for obvious reasons, when you see how hot it burns. The ash left behind is used as fertiliser for the lodge’s gardens.
Food waste is collected and processed in the biogas plant, which Albert likens to ‘a beast, with a mouth, throat and stomach’. First the waste is sorted. ‘Things like bones, oranges and onions can’t go into the mixing tank,’ he explains. Then it’s ground up and mixed with river water. At the end of a complex process of tanks and pipes it produces methane gas to use for cooking. ‘We don’t produce enough yet, so we still use LPG, but it will happen,’ he says.
Anything that can’t be used for biogas or sent for recycling ends up in an incinerator Albert calls Lucifer – for obvious reasons, when you see how hot it burns. The ash left behind is used as fertiliser for the lodge’s gardens.
This Rolls-Royce generator kicks in automatically during a power failure
He’s oddly enthusiastic to show off the above-ground closed water treatment plant, which is the collection point for grey water from 21 septic tanks around the lodge. Bacteria digest the sewage and the cleaned water then passes through ozone tanks before being mixed with river water and used in the sprinkler system for the lodge’s gardens.
Chobe Game Lodge is the only lodge inside the Chobe National Park and takes that responsibility seriously, employing a fulltime environmentalist. ‘We are also the eyes and ears of the wildlife people [Botswana’s Department of Wildlife & National Parks] because we are here inside the park at all times,’ says Albert. ‘We help them however we can.’
* This is part of a series called Voices of Botswana, which shares the stories of some of the people we met on our Botswana adventure.
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Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
Chobe Game Lodge is the only lodge inside the Chobe National Park and takes that responsibility seriously, employing a fulltime environmentalist. ‘We are also the eyes and ears of the wildlife people [Botswana’s Department of Wildlife & National Parks] because we are here inside the park at all times,’ says Albert. ‘We help them however we can.’
* This is part of a series called Voices of Botswana, which shares the stories of some of the people we met on our Botswana adventure.
You may also enjoy
Voices of Botswana: Xigera’s smiling chef
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
