-
Turning Poop into Profits: Waste Enterprisers Drive to Turn Waste Outputs into Fuel Inputs
If Ashley Murray has something to say about it, the economics of poop are in for a shake-up. “85 percent of human waste generated on the planet is dumped directly into the environment without any treatment at all,” she said. Murray, founder and CEO of Waste Enterprisers and a Fellow at this year’s Unreasonable Institute, believes that waste can be transformed into fuel.
- Categories
- Health Care, Technology
- Tags
- waste
-
Waste Ventures Gives India’s Waste Pickers Access to Carbon Markets
Urban India generates 40 million tons of rubbish each year, a figure that is growing by more than two million tons ever year. Just 25 percent of that rubbish is collected by government contractors and there is little recycling; the rest is dumped and left to rot, producing methane, which is 23 times more harmful to us than carbon dioxide. Waste Ventures is a social enterprise aims to build a model in waste management that empowers the was...
- Categories
- Environment
- Tags
- waste
-
Finding Value in Waste
As the number one exporter of Brazil nuts, Bolivia cultivates approximately 20,000 tons a year. Only 0.8 percent of the Brazil nuts are exported with their shell; the rest are cracked and their nutshells are discarded as waste. But the founders of PelletBol, developed a method to compress the Brazil nutshells into pellets as a source of biofuel.
- Categories
- Health Care
-
SOCAP11: Waste Management that Works
Parag Gupta, founder and CEO of Waste Ventures recently told me that urban India produces a mound of garbage that weighs twice as much as the Empire State Building every week. In that big pile of trash, Gupta and his team identified a glowing opportunity for economic, social, and environmental impact.
- Categories
- Environment, Health Care
-
Heating Homes With Human Waste is Saving Lives and Tigers in Nepal
Dirt gets a bad rap. I’m sitting on a dirt floor in Badreni, Nepal, in a home built largely of dirt (waddle and daub) and there’s nothing dirty at all about this place. I’m a guest in a biogas home--one of 7,500 the WWF has helped build to date and one of 40,000 that will dot this Nepalese landscape five years from now. A small but powerful blue flame whispers in the corner and brings light to the faces of my host family. That flame lights and heats the home; it also warms t...
- Categories
- Environment
- Tags
- waste
-
On Opposite Continents, 2 Individuals Turning Waste Into Wealth
Solid waste management is a serious problem in developing countries like Nepal, as dumping garbage in open spaces causes disease and pollution. Meanwhile, the favelas of Brazil offer few options for sustainable living, but one low-cost, sustainable village is in the planning. Courtesy of ViewChange, two videos explore real ecological alternatives.
- Categories
- Education
- Tags
- waste
-
Bill Gates Funds Human Waste To Biofuel Project In Ghana
Waste to fuel facilities are nothing new--in the past few years, we’ve seen chicken poop-powered fuel cell plants , a scheme to use astronaut poop for fuel in space, and a ...
- Categories
- Environment
- Tags
- waste
-
India’s Poor Risk ’Slow Death’ Recycling ’E-Waste’
NEW DELHI - Young rag-pickers sifting through rubbish are a common image of India’s chronic poverty, but destitute children face new hazards picking apart old computers as part of the growing "e-waste" industry. Asif, aged seven, spends his days dismantling electronic equipment in a tiny, dimly-lit unit in east Delhi along with six other boys. "My work is to pick out these small black boxes," he said, fingers deftly prising out integr...
- Tags
- waste
The Best of NextBillion in Your Inbox Each Week!
Subscribe to NB Notes for news, jobs & on-the-ground insights from the world of emerging markets business.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.