Assessment of Acceptance of the Use of Human Excreta for Biogas in Cooking : A Case Study of Educational Institutions in Bagamoyo District

Uncontrolled use of charcoal and firewood as source of energy has resulted in its fast depletion and consequently rise of price. This has affected for educational institutions in Bagamoyo district which normally accommodate high populations. There is urgent need to reduce pressure on the forests and woodlands through introduction of affordable alternative sources such as renewable energies for cooking purposes. Biogas technology derived from human excreta can serve as a means to overcome high costs for cooking energy especially in places where there is bulk consumption of energy use in educational institutions in Tanzania. A case study was conducted involving 150 respondents who are currently studying at the selected 9 educational institutions. Report findings revealed that most (94%) of students involved in this study are aware that human excreta can be used as alternative source of energy for cooking. A Spearman correlation test used software to determine the correlation between socio-cultural factors that relates to student acceptance of use of excreta as a source of energy for cooking. Results shows that there is strong positive monotonic correlation between education level and age of participants on acceptance of using human excreta as source of energy for cooking while the results shown relationship between sex and religion. Institutions that found to use human excreta biogas as a source of energy for cooking revealed to cut cost 5 times comparing to those institutions using fire wood and charcoal leave alone other benefits of maintaining environment and sanitation health. Formulation of policy, subsidies, microloans subsidies and tax reduction can assist educational institutions to install excreta used biogas projects in their schools