Narrator: This squishy sludge of coconut waste
could hold an answer to a deadly problem.
Alhaji Siraj Bah spent months of trial and error
developing his recipe for cooking fuel
made out of coconut shells instead of trees.
Narrator: He lost his adoptive family in a mudslide
when he was 17.
Before that, he spent years living on the streets,
dreaming of the day he could launch his own business.
Narrator: He lives in a part of Sierra Leone
that has lost 70% of its forest cover
over the last five decades.
One reason for deforestation is people chopping down trees
to feed their stoves.
Tree roots are essential to holding back the earth
during increasingly intense storms.
Narrator: The question now is
can Alhaji convince people in Freetown
to swap wood-based charcoal for coconut briquettes?
We went to Sierra Leone to see how this young entrepreneur
is saving trees
using worldwide waste.
Coconuts are one of Freetown's favorite on-the-go snacks.
Vendors end the day stuck with heaps of shells
that they need to get rid of somehow.
And that costs money.
Narrator: Alhaji says his company, Rugsal Trading,
collects about 2 metric tons of coconut waste per week.
He's aiming for 10 tons by the end of 2022.
Narrator: Workers clean the husks and shells
and dry them for about a week.
Next, they fire them inside this steel drum.
Narrator: They pulverize the charred coconuts
into a fine powder
and add water, plus a secret ingredient,
to bind it all together.
Narrator: The extruder pushes out slimy, rectangular logs
that will need to dry for three to four days.
These ones are destined for shisha pipes.
In fact, people who smoke hookah
are his best customers these days.
Rugsal Trading can produce
about half a metric ton of briquettes in a day.
And they bring in as much as $4,500 on a good month.
Narrator: They go for 70 cents per kilogram.
That's four times more expensive
than the common wood-based charcoal,
but they burn at least four times as long.
Alhaji's next big challenge is to grow his sales
to reach people who will use his coconut briquettes
for cooking fuel instead of cutting down trees.
Narrator: He has 10 full-time employees
and up to 40 part-timers, depending on the season.
Narrator: And about a year and a half ago,
he expanded his business.
Rugsal Trading raises and sells chickens, too.
His mother says he's wanted to be an entrepreneur
since he was a kid.
Narrator: But that all felt very far away
when Alhaji suddenly became the breadwinner
for his family at age 12.
Narrator: He left his village hoping to make money
to send home to his mother and sister.
Narrator: He lived on the streets for four years
until he found a steady job
and an adoptive family who took him in.
Narrator: Over 1,100 people died,
and 3,000 more lost their homes.
Alhaji was left with just a few dollars to his name.
But he was desperate to do something
to stop the deadly mudslides.
In the decade before the tragedy,
mudslides in Africa had already claimed thousands of lives.
Narrator: Alhaji began obsessively researching ways
to stop deforestation.
He found YouTube videos
of entrepreneurs from around the world
making biomass briquettes
to replace wood in charcoal.
He started saving money for an expensive mechanical extruder
and perfecting his recipe.
Narrator: He pitched his business idea
at a Harvard competition in 2020
and won awards there and at the United Nations.
And he recently landed new customers in Germany and the UK.
Narrator: But most people in Freetown
still cook with wood.
Narrator: According to a study in the Philippines,
one ton of biomass briquettes
saves roughly 80 small trees.
And that can add up.
But preserving trees isn't enough.
Narrator: Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr
became mayor of Freetown
by campaigning on a promise to plant
1 million trees by the end of 2022.
Narrator: It was the 2017 mudslide
that changed everything for her, too.
Narrator: She told us that Alhaji's project
makes her feel hopeful for the future.