Tuesday 28 August 2018

Waste treatment centre in Benin offers villagers cash and biogas

The village of Houegbo in Benin has opened a pilot waste treatment centre to turn household rubbish into useful fuel and cash.

Swiss sustainable developer ReBin built the facility, which turns around six tonnes of organic waste into 100 cubic metres of biogas every week.

It says this saves around 164 tonnes of wood from being used to make charcoal and through doing so helps to slash emissions in the energy-scarce region.

The organisation says the centre will also soon be able to produce 400 tonnes of organic fertiliser per year.

So far, around 100 households in the area have signed up to the scheme to deposit their waste at the centre, which awards them with the equivalent of £0.44 a day, paid either in cash or credit to buy biogas.

The primary waste processed is made up of pineapple skins - Benin is Africa’s fourth-biggest exporter of pineapples, with the village previously throwing away more than a tonne of waste from the fruit every day.

Local resident Alphonse Ago said: "Our trash has become gold. We no longer throw it into the bush. We use it to make money."