The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES), Makerere University has officially opened the first Centre of Excellence in Waste Management in Uganda at the Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute Kabanyolo (MUARIK). The Centre is to be used to train farmers on how to sort, compose, make biogas and set up demonstration plots on how to use agricultural waste.
The centre was established with support from Sida, the African Union (AU) European Union (EU),Government of Uganda through Bank of Uganda and Makerere University. State-of–the-art equipment worth $ USD 48,000 from the UK, Switzerland, Italy, Singapore, USA and China has been secured for the centre. This includes:
- Incubators (will help in culturing samples under controlled temperature)
- Oven ( for dying samples)
- Biogas analyzer ( for analyzing components in biogas)
- Microscope (observation of specimen)
- Centrifuges ( aid separation of liquid samples)
- Spectrophotometer ( analyzing of micronutrients in soil and water)
- Laboratory balance (for weighing samples)
- PH meter ( determining acidity and alkalinity of different samples of soil and water)
- Cooled incubator (for culturing and can vary temperature-low system organisms)
- Portable solar biogas digester
The centre was launched by the Swedish Ambassador to Uganda H.E. Per Lindgärde as Chief Guest on Friday 17th February 2017 under the theme, “Investing in Waste for a Green Future”. The function was also graced by the Vice Chancellor Prof. John Ddumba -Ssentamu and Vice Chancellor of Bishop Stuart University-Dr. Maud Kamatenesi Mugisha and the Secretary for Research at the Swedish Embassy Dr. Gity Behravan. Others were the Principal CAES-Prof. Bernard Bashaasha, the Director DGRT-Prof. Mukadasi Buyinza, Deputy Director DRGT-Dr. David Owinyi and other university staff.