Rural Recycling

Recycling has many clear benefits. These benefits include reuse of material, decreased landfill volumes, reduced impact on natural resources, and much more. Recycling can be relatively easy in urban environments that likely have recycling centers incorporated into everyday infrastructure, however, rural communities oftentimes may not have the same level of recycling infrastructure. In this case, recycling for some may seem not only uneconomical, but also counterproductive. Transport of recycled goods in some cases may require more energy than that saved through recycling. How can these problems be resolved for rural communities?

The key to increased recycling, in most all cases, is to make recycling easier and even cheaper than the alternative. This is often accomplished by locating recycling infrastructure alongside the normal waste infrastructure. In this case, there is no more energy needed to recycle. However, in rural communities, there may not even be a waste service at all! In communities that may not have a recycling service, perhaps community organizations could fund one. Many waste management companies will provide, with a fee, a large recycling receptacle. If conveniently placed next to a location that is often visited, such as the local post office, the ease of recycling has just increased. For residents who incinerate their waste, this would reduce their weekly burden, making recycling easier than the alternative. Local businesses may also see this as both a philanthropy opportunity and a way to draw more customers to their location.

There could be many benefits to installing a local recycling center that make the project economical and productive. Consider what options are possible in your rural community!

U.I.I has been working to develop many different solutions to problems in rural communities. Contact us if your community could use help in this area!

Energy Transitions – Haiti

Many societies around the world rely on wood and charcoal for cooking fuel. In some cases, this resource is not plentiful enough to sustain the population growth. This can lead to environmental problems in the form of deforestation and erosion. Furthermore, the particulates that are inherent to the wood smoke are oftentimes inadequately ventilated. This can lead to harmful health effects over a lifetime of exposure. Our neighbor country, Haiti, is very familiar with these issues.

The answer to these problems is not as simple as switching to electric stoves. For countries like Haiti there are people who cannot afford an electric cook stove, let alone have access to electricity. While electric stoves could be the long-term solution, what could be the next step towards this energy transition? One solution could be propane gas, also known as Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG).

Implementing programs and markets that make LPG available and economical could assist with an energy transition. This step could, over time, reduce the charcoal demand by creating a substitute product and a new market.

In turn, the forested areas of the country should see less pressure from the charcoal demand, leading towards a more sustainable tree harvest rate. Higher levels of forestation would lead to better erosion control, food production, cheaper charcoal, wildlife diversity, and improved air quality.

Use of cleaner burning LPG stoves would also provide health benefits by reducing particulates previously associated with cooking. Better health means more productive lives, and reduced demand on the health system.

An energy transition requires access to the LPG market and stove components. The adoption of LPG within a percentage of the Haiti population could create a balance with charcoal demand that creates a sustainable solution for the country.

From the related article:

Tackling one-tenth of Haitian deaths and helping the environment

Another approach is to tackle deforestation by reducing demand for forests to be felled. Between 70% and 95% of the energy used for cooking in Haiti comes from wood and charcoal.

…

The vast majority of Haiti – 94% of the population – cooks with solid fuels, evenly split between wood and charcoal. Nearly half cooks outdoors, more than one-third in a separate building, and 15% in the house.

The resulting air pollution is a silent killer. According to new analysis by environmental economist Bjorn Larsen, this was responsible for 8,200 deaths in Haiti last year. That is one death in ten, making it the fourth most serious health risk factor after malnutrition, unsafe sex, and high blood pressure.

…

The cheapest option is to substitute cleaner versions of the charcoal and wood-powered stoves used by Haitians today. While the benefits of just improving the status quo are relatively limited, the cost is as little as $10 or 670 gourdes, and nearly 4 gourdes of benefits would be achieved for each gourde spent.

While encouraging the adoption of LPG or ethanol would be much more expensive, the health benefits are 1.5 to two times higher, and thus this is the only real longer-term solution.

More than 4,150 deaths could be avoided annually by full adoption of LPG or ethanol. Non-health benefits include a reduction in wood collection time and fuelwood savings as high as 6000 gourdes per year for some households that switch.

But large-scale roll-out of cleaner cookstoves has had very limited success so far. A big factor is monetary: the high initial cost of the stoves and of LPG and ethanol fuel.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tackling-one-tenth-of-haitian-deaths-and-helping-the_us_58cfb69ae4b07112b6472f7d

U.I.I. has been working to develop energy solutions for countries like Haiti. Contact us if you’d be interested in working with us on one of these projects.

Trash-Free Water Systems

It is very common to hear environmental concerns regarding our oceans and rivers. There are many disheartening pictures that capture the volume of trash floating in these ecosystems. These are environments where people swim, kid’s play, fish live, and food is gathered. What can you do to help restore these water systems?

One major solution is litter control. Everyone has the opportunity to pick up litter almost every day and in every place in the world. Discarded trash thrown out of a car will move towards the roadside ditch. The ditch washes down to a stream. The stream drains to a river. The river flows to the ocean. Please consider routine trash pick-ups in your neighborhood, educate each other on the consequences of litter, and pick up any trash you see before it washes away.

Here at U.I.I., there has been a lot of focus on the litter specific environmental problem. If you are interested in research on this subject, contact us!

Have a look at this article that highlights the impacts of plastics on our water systems. Plastics have great benefits, but they can also create problems if abused.

From the article:

Stemming the Plastic Tide: 10 Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans

Our seas are choking on plastic. A staggering eight million metric tons wind up in oceans every year, and unraveling exactly how it gets there is critical. A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers, eight of them in Asia.

“Rivers carry trash over long distances and connect nearly all land surfaces with the oceans,” making them a major battleground in the fight against sea pollution, explains Christian Schmidt, a hydrogeologist at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Leipzig, Germany.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/