When his school’s sewers started inadvertently polluting the nearby community’s stream, resulting in an uproar amongst locals, Leroy Mwasaru decided to do something about it.
The teenager, who lives in Maseno, a small town in Kenya, rallied four friends and set about designing a biogas system during their science classes.
They soon built their first prototype - which now powers the school’s kitchen, and has solved the problem of sewage leaking into the community’s domestic water source.
After winning $2,500 in prize money at a science competition, the group decided to build a pilot project, which now powers five households in Mwasaru’s home stead.
Soon, Greenpact was born - the clean energy startup which hopes to solve the problem more than 6m Kenyan households face: a lack of access to clean energy and proper sanitation.
Not only does the model produce environmentally-friendly energy, but it also cuts down on firewood, which young girls walk for hours to collect, and which can often be a fire hazard.
“In slums in Kenya where waste is mishandled causing waterborne diseases like Dysentry and Cholera, Greenpact will [help change] the status quo,” Mwasuru tells HuffPost UK.
“Not waste, but a resource.”