Small Benin village turns mountains of trash into clean fuel — and cash
Jobs are created, hundreds of tons of wood is saved from being burned as fuel, and locals are thrilled to replace coal with cleaner fuel for cooking
Houegbo — Garbage has never smelled so sweet for a small village in southern Benin since it opened a pilot waste treatment centre to turn household rubbish into gas — and cash. "Our trash has become gold. We no longer throw it into the bush. We use it to make money," beams Alphonse Ago, who lives next to the centre in Houegbo village. ReBin, a Swiss foundation for sustainable development, built the 1.3ha facility, which every week turns about six tons of organic waste into 200 cubic metres of biogas — saving about 164 tons of wood from being used to make charcoal. The centre, which opened late last year, also plans to produce about 400 tons of organic fertiliser a year.
So far, about 100 households in the area have signed up to the scheme to deposit their waste at the centre on a daily basis. Every 10kg of waste fetches 250 CFA francs (about 57 US cents), paid either in cash or credit to buy biogas...
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