Creativity meets sustainability! The engineering team from Six Senses Laamu repurposed some unlikely items to build a charcoal oven, now in operation in the resort’s Earth Lab.

This latest ecological project to create a charcoal oven at Six Senses Laamu has been completed through collaboration between the resort’s Earth Lab and engineering teams.

As sustainability represents a core value of Six Senses, and to help overcome the challenges integral to an isolated island, Six Senses Laamu is constantly working towards being self-sufficient. The resort reduces waste as much as possible, either disposing of it responsibly or recycling it onsite.

“Producing our own charcoal for our beach barbecues means we can minimize imports and work towards zero-waste,” says general mechanic Paranthaman Subramiam. The wood for the charcoal comes from waste hardwood, and the wood used to fuel the oven’s fire comes from carpentry scraps such as off-cuts from fences.

The oven is made from an old cylinder of a generator silencer and a defunct cement mixer. A pipe is installed inside which captures the carbon gas, or biogas, released by the wood. It re-circulates the gas into the burning area so that the fire can continuously burn without needing to add more wood. The wood burns for about three hours and then is left to cool before it becomes finished charcoal. The cement mixer wheel makes it easy to load and unload wood in the oven and each batch can produce about 18 kilograms of charcoal.

“The project has used 100 percent recycled material, and cost us nothing,” said Vinod Kumar, assistant chief engineer. “It is a bright example of how expertise and creative thinking can lead to innovation, and significantly benefit the resort's waste management systems.”