FdS Haiti Paper & Plastic Recycling

Frantz was born in Haiti and educated in the Dominican Republic. With over 15 years experience in the paper and plastic recycling sectors, Franz's leadership roles include: Project Manager Waste Management Services, Project Evaluation, Training, Supervision, Innovation, Site Evaluation, Project Development and an In-Depth Cultural Understanding of Local and International Business in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. General Manager of Fuego del Sol Haiti S.A., a Triple Bottom Line Haitian Corporation, dedicated to creating, developing and assisting social / ecological products, services, solutions and companies. Frantz is versatile, dedicated and a creative team player who has been co-owner, co-director and co-creator of the FdS project for its entire 15 year history.

Globally destructive plastic waste pollution is dramatically worse in Haiti: Thousands of tons of plastic are dumped in oceans or piled and burned. Current recycling projects in Haiti rely on exporting plastics, which makes the projects vulnerable to international markets and removes potential processing jobs from Haiti. Fuego del Sol (FdS) Haiti already produces the largest volume of recycled paper products in Haiti with our paper-cardboard-sawdust fuel briquettes. By implementing the proven plastics processing technology offered by Precious Plastic (PP), FdS can expand into producing recycled plastic products. In addition to introducing domestic recycled plastics processing and creating jobs, our turn-key solution, once implemented in Haiti, can be successfully expanded and up-scaled throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. FdS will customize and develop the plastic recycling machines, following the PP open-source model to optimize production capacity, even in of-grid locations to make paper and plastic recycling more accessible worldwide.

FdS’s recycling solutions address environmental, health, and economic problems. 

There are no modern landfills in Haiti. All current plastic recycling projects in Haiti focus on collection, baling and export. Mixed medical waste, plastics, restroom waste and discarded food products accumulate on unprotected plots of land where pigs and humans dig side-by-side, searching for something to sell or eat. This is in an atmosphere of smoldering fires and lung-choking smoke with the piles constantly being burned away to allow more room for more materials. Eventually, unprocessed waste makes its way to the ocean. USAID estimates that charcoal cooking shortens lives by over 5 years, (other than FdS briquettes / stoves) all Haitian fuel options destroy lungs, the environment and/or remove crucial jobs from the economy. The economic returns of plastic recycling is currently dependent on international demand. When petroleum prices were higher in 2013, recycled containers (PET and HDPE) were valuable for resale; when oil prices fell, prices for recyclable materials dropped, and the economic benefits of recycling ceased. Every exported container of plastics takes 2 full-time jobs from Haiti to the location where the plastics are formed into new products, compounding the country’s 70% rate of underemployment.

Port-au-Prince has several plastic collection companies who send baled plastics overseas. Currently, FdS collects thousands of pounds of plastic every month, which are sorted, separated, washed and sold to larger plastic-recycling collectors in Haiti. The plastics are then shipped off-shore for recycling.

We will grow our existing recycled products center FdS will expand current operations of turning paper, cardboard and sawdust into recycled fuel briquettes. The new solution includes a complete plastic cleaning, shredding, melting, extruding and molding production line. The FdS team has the fabrication experience to implement this system, and the complete technology is available open-source from the innovation team at Precious Plastic.

The FdS solution would start by recycling all HDPE and PP that our waste-collection clients provide. Since PET is more difficult to recycle, initially, it would be baled at our facility for exportation. But the HDPE and PP would be recycled into long-term use products that are in great need in Haiti, including school chair-and-desk combinations, shelves, and closet organizers. There is also a huge potential in the growing market for toilet seats; domestic production would allow FdS to customize the sizes of the seats to meet the specific needs of local customers.

FdS asked the people of Port-au-Prince their first priority for a specific improvement in their lives: the majority of the responses were about cooking fuel. Wood was difficult to collect; charcoal and propane were too expensive. 

FdS goes beyond Cultural Competency to Cultural Humility - as opposed to a one time self-education on other cultures, we recognize a life-long commitment to understanding those around us--accepting each individual's worldview formed from their unique culture. This is why FdS implements a framework called Listen, Lead, Listen Again. 1. We ask people what they want or need to make their lives better, listening closely to their answers. 2. We suggest and introduce innovations, technologies, operations, services and solutions that local people would not have access to without our participation. 3. We listen again to learn which of the innovations we suggest are most likely to be culturally-adoptable, and we then create our design-feedback-loop based on those responses. We repeat the process, working to maximize impact. By making our cultural interactions circular instead of linear, we are able to serve continuously instead of singularly. These unheard voices, the underemployed, impoverished/ under-served people of Haiti, are the voices we seek to serve with our project.

Our project is driven by behavioral economics and theories of change. We believe in creating systematic progress through building driving forces that are culturally accepted and encouraged. These are self-motivating systems that are therefore incredibly sustainable and thorough. 

In 2011, the FdS project in the Dominican Republic was asked by the UN World Food Program to move to Haiti. FdS found success working with the WFP in introducing ecological fuel solutions into schools: In 2013, the WFP was buying as many as 300,000 briquettes a month from FdS, utilizing 253 stoves in 75 schools in Port-au-Prince Haiti. The briquettes and fuels had been so popular that when our team would deliver the briquettes to the schools, the cooks would ask us how they could have similar stoves and briquettes for them to cook with at home.  However, when the WFP cancelled the program, FdS was required to find innovative solutions to develop and implement stoves and fuels in other cooking locations, including factories. FdS has worked to find the best implementation methods to help the people of Haiti move beyond cooking with harmful charcoal toward cooking to more ecological and healthy cooking options.

Until I was eight years old, I lived with my family in Haiti. My father had left us, and my mother decided that our family would have a better chance to get an education and a better life in the Dominican Republic. I remember that as a kid, my best friend was also my cousin, Bitolio. We always call him Toto. We were moving, my mom, my brother, Bitolio and me, and we were getting ready to find our way across the border. Then, just before we left, my grandmother told my mom, "Toto -- this one, he is not yours, his mother, she can't be reached right now, so he can't go. So I went to the DR and I went to school, and I learned Spanish and Math and English. Mom brought my brother and me to a better life. But, I never forgot Bitolio. So, after the earthquake when we could go back to Haiti and make a company to help people get jobs and stop killing themselves on charcoal smoke, the first person I hired was Toto! He can't read, but he helped create the FdS stove that Haiti people want and need to live.

FdS Haiti is all about working together. I founded the company with the American, Kevin Adair, and he and I are still the co-directors of the company.

FdS Haiti is already the largest volume recycled products producer in Haiti with our paper-cardboard-sawdust fuel briquettes. Work in the recycled plastics product sector would be a compatible expansion to the current operations of FdS Haiti. Furthermore, our collaboration with the open-system created by Precious Plastics will only further enhance our capabilities. Our dedication to addressing issues from multiple fronts (environmental, health, and economic) means we are prepared to make the most wide reaching and sustainable impact possible. 

By having spent the last 15 years not only addressing the needs of the environment but also addressing the health, unemployment, and economic struggles of our people, we have the direct system and momentum needed to create the best possible solutions.

Everything about our project is about changing to meet the needs and the wants of the people of Haiti. When Haitians make charcoal, it kills 10 pounds of wood for every 1 pound of charcoal that they make. But still, people don't like to change. Charcoal cooking is the kind of cooking that everyone knows, so for people to change we have to make the best stove that we can, to make the food just like the people are used to. That's why we need to keep making the stoves better. Now, we have a stove that works great, but it doesn't look great yet. They people want it to work great and look great. So when we work with Haiti Metals and have the right forms and dies made for their machines, we will be able to make our stoves even better. It is the same idea for the plastic machines, we used to collect the garbage of the Canadian Embassy, but there are many companies collecting garbage so they went with a cheaper company who does not recycle. So, now we need to change again so we can make more jobs and recycle plastic in Haiti.

I was working as a manager for FdS in the DR starting in 2005. I was the leader of a tourism trip in December of 2009 for tourism of people who wanted to learn about Haitian culture. So I started out in Santo Domingo, went to Port-au-Prince led the group so they learned about Haiti, and then I went back to the DR. I was only home for a few days when we heard the earthquake hit in Haiti and the people were dying. The little hotel where I stayed in P-a-P the week before fell down, and the owner was dead. I knew lots of people who died from the Earthquake. But I was safe, and I could help. I took a break from FdS and went to Haiti to help other organizations that we knew who were working to help get people food and shelter. That was such a hard time. There were gangs who were taking the food, so just one American worker and I were the ones that the community asked to pass out the tickets so people could get the food, and the gang leaders would not steal it all. I was happy to help.

FdS is a Social-Eco Enterprise with full legal status as a business in Haiti, a country that the World Bank lists as one of the most difficult to start a business. FdS also has 501(c)(3) IRS charitable status through our US fiscal sponsor, Omprakash.org.

Every aspect of the FdS implementation is co-created by our Haitian / International team working for the verifiable benefit of the Haitian people.

FdS developed and follows the "Listen. Lead. Listen Again." developmental method. First, we ask people what they want/need to make their lives better, listening closely to their answers. Next, the FdS team suggests and introduces innovations, technologies, operations, services and solutions that local people would not have access to without our participation. Then, we listen again to learn which of the innovations we suggest are most likely to be culturally adoptable, and we then create a design-feedback-loop based on those answers. Then, we repeat the process. 

We are not a top-down process or a bottom-up process. Rather, the FdS: Listen. Lead. Listen Again. model is an integrated co-created solution. Internationals work with local innovators to co-design, co-manage, co-own, cooperate, and introduce the most culturally and technologically effective solutions possible for issues that were previously considered intractable. 

The el Fuego del Sol recycling introduction, adoption, and expansion program in Haiti uncovered a new Change Mechanism that could be included in a list of behavioral science terms such as the list at behavioraleconomics.com, and potentially have beneficial impact for development worldwide. The Plunge is a Change Mechanism in which, in exchange for choosing to participate, potential adopters of a beneficial innovation are immersed in that innovation and required to comply, providing hands-on experience and expertise in the logistics of the innovation. The Plunge is focused on SQB and Change Adversity. Examples include making the new condition standard practice in the place of employment of the potential adopters. The Plunge can encourage the DIT first “Early Adopters” to self-select and indicate their interest and willingness to transfer the new method to other locations and adopters. Implementers should consider engaging the “Further-Plunge Effect” by encouraging these self-identified Ultra-Early Adopters to introduce, teach, and train other potential adopters (right) in the new-improved practice / technology, thus intensifying their own personal emersion, dedication, and investment in the new solution. The concept of the Ultra-Early Adopters could be added to the DIT introduction curve, with the Plunge being identified as a potential first step for any new technology / service / practice introduction and adoption plan. The Plunge happens whenever a choice is made mandatory, should a person choose to participate. Another example is: If you want to get your money out of the ATM, you must take your card out first. People comply with the Plunge everyday. The Plunge has the potential to be further tested, developed and eventually included on the list of Behavioral Science concepts including that of www.behavioraleconomics.com

To accurately address impact numbers, the addition to FdS operations of plastic processing should be seen as an expansion of the model that we have been demonstrating in Haiti since 2012 and in the Dominican Republic since 2006. We currently have 12 full time employees and 31 part time employees. Additionally, over 800 briquette stoves burning hundreds of thousands of FdS briquettes have been implemented in over 80 schools, orphanages and factories throughout the Port-as-Prince region. We already collect tons of plastic every month with no options for domestic recycling of that plastic. Instead of selling it for offshore processing, we could use the prize to expand our in-country recycling process. This helps to create more jobs and financial autonomy within Haiti as an additional bonus to the ecological and health benefits involved in our plan. This expansion will specifically create over a dozen new employment opportunities, and can drastically reduce the amount of exported waste.

Within one year we would like to be producing and distributing our Gen-9 stoves in Haiti and for potential export. We would like to have our first 6-machine recycled plastics factory up and running. Considering the current global situation, this solution is designed to hit the ground running when we are again able to gain access to Haiti. We are utilizing the time before we can re-enter the country to ready all of our partnerships, and suppliers. There will be no delay once things open up.

In five years: 

In addition to the recycled paper and plastic products and our ecological stoves, FdS will grow into the capacity to produce all of the plastic processing equipment to build additional SME turn-key container units for our own expansion and implementation in other Haiti locations plus international export.

As another goal, we are starting our own Candlewood (Amyris) nursery. The trees are indigenous to Haiti and are harvested for their oil. Along with vetiver, candlewood oil is one of Haiti’s largest agricultural exports, but it is under-discussed. We utilize the wood pulp (after the oil is extracted) as one of the components in our FdS fuel briquettes, along with recycled paper and cardboard. Our source for the candlewood source-fuel material has shared with us that they are running out of the trees, and we are ready sustainably grow them in agroforestry. We have located everything we need to start our sustainable candlewood nursery and agroforestry implementation as part of this project.

Haiti currently has extensive problems. COVID is, of course, a huge issue, and the country was facing social unrest / political uncertainty before the COVID outbreak. And the HTG currency is in a free-fall against the dollar. Our entire model is based on addressing the sad fact that the people in Haiti currently do not have any options that they can protest in favor of. The FdS model is fully self sustainable, and utilizes resources that are primarily directly available in Haiti. This is crucial in the current social-eco environment of the country, and an excellent example for other international Fragile State locations.

Importation of fuel is a challenge in Haiti. We have found it easier to import materials that we need for production and store those materials on site than it is to purchase materials from other importers in the Haitian marketplace. We plant the trees this year, and we can start harvesting them in five years.

Behavioral Economics

Our theories of change are based on one of the mechanisms of change that we have identified and developed. It goes beyond the Nudge concept made famous by Thaler and Sunstein to the concept of The Plunge (That our team was the first to identify, name and utilize): immersion in a new concept can have the effect of developing the earliest early adopters. Another take on it is paying people to do what is good for them. What people do in their work environments they get accustomed to, and then they are often asking how they can utilize similar products and technologies in their homes. This is entirely alternative to traditional marketing models, but it has proven effective in our previous implementations.

Also crucial is for our work to be as self-sufficient as possible. We need to locate all of our source fuels (including candlewood as discussed above). In business in the US the plan is always to do one thing and do it exceptionally well. In countries such as Haiti, success is in being as sustainable as possible, and to depend on other importers and the governments as little as possible. All of these concepts are in our implementation model and goals.

El Fuego del Sol is currently partnered with the following entities: 

Sakala: Cite Soleil Youth Community Center

Haiti Metals: Haitian Stove Builder / Metal Factory

Haiti Takes Root Coalition: Fighting deforestation/ Founder: J/P HRO

CRESFED: Haitian Social NGO

Haiti Communitere: Haitian Social Association

Kids Connection Haiti International Social NGO

SYACDEIN: Haitian Agricultural NGO

Groupo Jaragua: Dominican Ecological NGO, working in the DR and Haiti

These organizations are involved in our project as site operators,communication hubs, cultural touchstone locations, manufacturers, and innovators. 

All of FdS implementation aspects are mutually supportive and integrated to bring additional funds into the overall FdS Financial whole. For example the FdS briquette sustainability cycle (Please see figure.)  actively integrates financial benefit for the organization with each phase of the sustainability wheel.  FdS generates funds through shredding (secure document destruction) for the US Embassy, the Canadian embassy, the World Bank, the German Embassy, and numerous other companies and organizations concerned with security. Then, those materials are ecologically processed into the paper component of our FdS fuel briquettes. Other document destruction in Haiti is generally wastefully burned. Then, in the morning, our truck is loaded with FTS fuel briquettes and they are driven to our operational partners who have paid for our stoves and buy briquettes regularly.  This is a second income source. These same partners are also supplying FdS with additional cardboard and paper materials which then return in our truck to our facility to be subsequently used to produce income-generating briquettes. 

This same conceptual model is implemented in our expansion for both plastic recycling products and our longer-term Candlewood nursery and fuel-forest. Every step generates income for fds while simultaneously improving the environment and creating Haitian jobs. FdS is the true triple-bottom-line model.

All of FdS implementation aspects are mutually supportive and integrated to bring additional funds into the overall FdS Financial whole. For example the FdS briquette sustainability cycle (Please see figure.)  actively integrates financial benefit for the organization with each phase of the sustainability wheel.  FdS generates funds through shredding (secure document destruction) for the US Embassy, the Canadian embassy, the World Bank, the German Embassy, and numerous other companies and organizations concerned with security. Then, those materials are ecologically processed into the paper component of our FdS fuel briquettes. Other document destruction in Haiti is generally wastefully burned. Then, in the morning, our truck is loaded with FTS fuel briquettes and they are driven to our operational partners who have paid for our stoves and buy briquettes regularly.  This is a second income source. These same partners are also supplying FdS with additional cardboard and paper materials which then return in our truck to our facility to be subsequently used to produce income-generating briquettes. 

This same conceptual model is implemented in our expansion for both plastic recycling products and our longer-term Candlewood nursery and fuel-forest. Every step generates income for fds while simultaneously improving the environment and creating Haitian jobs. FdS is the true triple-bottom-line model.

FdS has separately raised over $50,000 for this project as matching funding for the following grant funding we are seeking.

FdS has separately raised over $50,000 for this project as matching funding for the following grant funding we are seeking. We are seeking the following grant from the Elevate Prize for a major expansion of our operations in Haiti.

Our operating budget is generally in the US $150,000 per year range, not including the original investments. FdS has raised in total over $400,000 so far. This year will have a lower budget than most due to COVID. Future years should exceed the $150K number, but grow gradually and sustainably.

Ever since we started our ecological cooking projects in the Dominican Republic in 2005 we have been aware of the work of the D-Lab and interested in collaborating. We previously shared data demonstrating that the non-carbonized briquettes and stoves that we produce are superior to the concept of carbonized waste-material briquettes. However, data recently released from the Clean Cooking Alliance reveal that our solution, mentioned by name, is the best solution for implementation in countries such as Haiti! The link for this groundbreaking data / study is: http://ow.ly/btby50AwUQu

We  hope that now through the Elevate prize our work in Haiti can form a collaboration with Solve, the D-Lab, and the innovative talent of MIT to successfully implement our long-term sustainable development model that we have co-created with the people of Haiti. One major Improvement of non-carbonized briquettes in FdS gasification stove technology is the dramatically low in-kitchen release of air impurities. Carbonized briquettes made from waste-materials have been shown to be at least as (or even more) polluting of indoor air (Household Air Pollution / HAP) than traditional charcoals, specifically in regards to smoke particulate matter (PM2.5) and carbon-monoxide. FdS non-carbonized briquettes cooking Haitian food in FdS ultra-efficient gasification TLUD stoves are demonstrated to release zero air impurities in the cooking environment during the cooking process. Now is the time. Please, let's work together.

We are ready to work together, open-source, in every way possible.

The candlewood forest concept will literally make existing fuel-forest land 50x more financially productive. It takes 10 lb of wood to make one lb of charcoal. When that is replaced with candlewood, the same plot of land can make 10x the souce fuel, which sells for 5x the amount per bag!