In Kenya's capital, Nairobi, you can identify the city's largest shantytown, Kibera, by its pungent stench. Dirty diapers, rotten food, medical waste – Kibera's residents are forced to wade through the thick mass of debris and filth on a daily basis. Unfortunately, they have no alternative: The area doesn't have the money for a waste-disposal service.

However, it looks like a new United Nations-sponsored project will do wonders for getting the trash out of Kibera – and it'll help the locals put dinner on the table, too.

Confused? Don't worry – it's all perfectly hygienic. The United Nations team has purchased a large incinerator, which is capable of burning large quantities of the village's trash heap at once. As the garbage burns, residents can use the heat from the flames to boil water and to cook meals – a rare opportunity in an area where many have never eaten a hot meal before. As an added bonus, the new program even provides jobs to hundreds of local youths, who are paid to gather trash from the streets as fuel for the incinerator.

Kibera may never be the greenest of neighborhoods, but the new program is already making a notable difference in an area long known for its awful pollution.

"What the stove has done is basically to make rubbish into something you can use," the United Nations Environmental Program chief Achim Steiner told AFP News.

The UN hopes to expand the program into other African slums in the coming years. But for now, at least, the residents of Kibera can rest assured that they won't be holding their noses forever.

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