Fuego del Sol Haiti Plastics Recycling

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.

FdS seeks to mitigate the negative effects of plastic pollution in Haiti through our job-creating, ecological recycling project.

FdS is developing ecological, clean-air manufacturing for a melting, extruding and molding production line. FdS will modify the open-source plastic recycling technologies of Precious Plastic to enable off-grid recycling. FdS will produce complete turn-key recycled products production centers that can be implemented by SMEs throughout Haiti with a model that can be emulated and scaled up globally.

One of the most universal potential uses for recycled plastic is in the production of paving-bricks. FdS has developed a safe ergonomic recycled paving-brick production method.

FdS (headquartered in Tabarre) aims to deter the existing overflow of garbage on the streets/landscapes of Haiti, Haitian deforestation caused by the charcoal trade, and pollution into the air due to charcoal cooking. Based on Tabarre’s 2015 population of 130,283, we estimate that 204,544.31 to 234,509.40 pounds of MSW are produced in Tabarre per day. Concurrently, 70% of Haiti's native forests have been destroyed, with deforestation continuing as trees are felled to produce charcoal (400,000 tons of charcoal burned annually in Haiti, destroying over 4,000,000 tons of trees since it takes 10 tons of wood to produce one ton of charcoal). Charcoal stoves release PM2.5 and CO emissions in concentrations considered deadly. FdS provides a sustainable, clean solution that prevents trees from being cut and garbage from being littered through the production of bio-briquettes made from recycled paper products (otherwise would go to landfills and roadsides); these are used to fuel cookstoves normally fueled by charcoal. FdS cookstoves, made from local materials, are ultra-efficient and do not emit harmful quantities of smoke particulate matter or carbon monoxide. Our ultra-efficient technology also melts plastic waste, preventing it from being littered/discarded, which can be recycled into needed products such as paving bricks.

Fuego Del Sol Haiti (FdS), a Haitian social-eco enterprise, has worked with Haitian communities for nine years to provide jobs, high quality products, and a better local environment. The primary activity of FdS has been to manufacture and implement energy-efficient, clean burning stoves and produce non-carbonized biomass briquettes out of recycled paper, cardboard, and other waste.

Now, FdS is expanding into plastics recycling through the use of Precious Plastics technology in combination with the FdS ultra-efficient combustion technology. The plan is to acquire machinery, and take advantage of its open source design to adapt to FdS’s purposes and achieve scalability. The combination of Precious Plastics machinery and FdS’s expertise and existing biomass-based heating technology will allow for the first off-grid plastics recycling machinery. This project has the added benefit of providing work to local Haitian machinery shops and jobs to the future operators of these plastics recycling machines.

The first machine that FdS will manufacture is an ultra-efficient paving-brick production system utilizing recycled plastics and locally-available sand instead of imported concrete. FdS began this plastic recycling project in May of 2021.

Summarized: an inexpensive, scalable, efficient Haitian plastics recycling system, providing local jobs, producing needed products, and reducing street/ocean/landfill waste.

Our solution affects all people in Haiti as all people experience air pollution and the overflow of garbage littered throughout roadsides and landscapes. Women are disproportionately affected due to the fact that women have traditionally done much of the cooking in Haiti, thus breathing unhealthy fumes from traditional charcoal cooking methods. To both understand the needs of women and the larger population in Haiti and engage this population as we develop solutions, we follow the Listen. Lead. Listen Again. model. Out solution addresses this specific need of promoting resilient ecosystems through recycling waste and repurposing it so that it does not end up on the street, particularly through the creation of briquettes, plastic products such as needed paving bricks, the reduction of dangerous emissions from charcoal cooking, and through the prevention of deforestation. The following paragraphs go into further detail:

FdS has improved the health of our consumers by reducing the harmful fumes they are exposed to when cooking with charcoal. The reduction of these fumes has a positive impact on the air in the general natural environment. The background air impurity levels in Port-au-Prince are already perilously close to the maximum levels considered acceptable by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to the burning of waste materials and inefficient diesel engines. Then, when Haitian people produce large amounts of charcoal, and when Haitian cooks prepare food over inefficient charcoal stoves, the levels of exposure to air impurities such as smoke particulate material (PM2.5) are as high as 12X the maximum WHO levels. Fuego del Sol already produces the largest volume of recycled paper products in Haiti with our paper-cardboard-sawdust fuel briquettes, which prevent trees from being felled and reduce carbon emission by replacing charcoal fuel. FdS also produces the most efficient stoves in Haiti, with fuel efficiency independently tested at 40 to 45%. Thus, FdS reduces the pollution that Haitian’s are unintentionally causing, and promotes resilient ecosystems, by providing more efficient cooking equipment and fuel.

Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by cookstove pollution; typical Haitian family structures involve women spending more time in the home and thus spend more time breathing in the harmful substances released into the air when traditional cooking fuels are utilized. Addressing indoor air pollution directly benefits women by seeking to reduce the detrimental impact inefficient cooking systems have on their respiratory health. FdS implements fair hiring practices while simultaneously seeking out employment opportunities for those in the most need. Ending cyclical poverty by providing steady employment, alongside ensuring resilient ecosystems through air-quality improvement (reducing deforestation and reducing unhealthy emissions/fumes) and increased recycling/waste reduction, is one of the most sustainable ways of ensuring better quality of life. 

As mentioned above, we follow the Listen. Lead. Listen Again. model. When, at its inception, 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. Therefore 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/ underserved people of Haiti, are the voices we seek to serve with our projects.

The following short independent film documentary captures the essence of how FdS positively impacts its target population and provides solutions to problems in the lives of others as well as in the ecosystems of Haiti:

https://vimeo.com/244960210?fb...

Our solution pertains to all of the above challenge options: We are developing the logistics for expanding a sustainable ecological and economic ecosystem for the long-term development of Haiti. Our briquettes are produced from paper, cardboard, sawdust and waste biomass. The main biomass we use is from post-industrial removal of oil from the local indigenous amyris / candlewood trees. No one is planting amyris nurseries so the natural supply is very low. Agro-forrestry of candlewood can generate 50 times the income per acre as charcoal. Then the remaining pulp is perfect for briquettes. Off-grid small-scale plastic recycling is globally game-changing!

We are testing our household stoves in Kenscoff and our institutional stoves in schools in Tabarre and Kafou Fe. The stoves are cooking for 240+ school children and 10+ adults. Since our Gen 1 implementation over 750 units have been introduced and crucial feedback has been gained in a dramatic user-focused design-feedback loop. The current implementation is supported by a small grant from the US Embassy in Haiti as the latest pilot and implemented into local schools in the World Food Program school feeding program. 

The bottlenecks in the production process and the distribution process have been identified and are ready to be addressed in the scope of this Solve prize program.

With $200,000 - $300,000 of funding we have all of the connections and logistics in place to transition from artisan production levels of 10 units /week to factory production and economy of scale for 200 units /week.

FdS has a history of innovation in design, including an ecological non-carbonized fuel briquette made of recycled paper, cardboard, sawdust, and other widely available biomass in Haiti. This project expands FdS into another area of waste reduction: plastic. After obtaining machinery from Precious Plastic, FdS teams in Haiti will replicate and improve the PP open-source design to ecologically function off-grid: Our design innovation teams will work to replace the electrical heating elements with FdS ultra-efficient biomass heat generator units, thus developing the first off-grid plastic recycling machines available anywhere.

FdS is one of the first developmental organizations to base core concepts on principles of Behavioral Economics, including the Listen. Lead. Listen Again model. First, we listen to our Haitian partners/advisors to learn what would improve their lives. Then, as invited respectful guests in Haiti, we provide leadership in the form of technology, logistics, funding, research-based data, coordination, and oversight (unlikely to be present without outside collaboration). Subsequently, we listen again to find the best culturally-compatible options of the leadership that we have shared. Innovative concepts are further explained here and here, with a detailed webcast about FdS here.

Status quo charcoal stoves expose Haitian cooks to six times the maximum exposure of CO and 12 times that of PM2.5, where our stoves release no detectable air impurities in the kitchen.

Independent third-party research by CCA and ENEA identify FdS stoves as superior to all other cooking methods in Haiti on metrics from energy efficiency to fighting pollution.
https://drive.google.com/file/...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HERJ06IqTBf2EXBTWrfZm6TIuOniEB_Z/view?usp=sharing

Our current operation has two specific bottlenecks: Our stove price is higher than the basic stoves used in Haiti with wood and charcoal, and we are exploring carbon credits and other sustainable market-based methods to address that issue. The second bottleneck is in the production. We are ready to move to our Gen 9 production which will be in factory production in Haiti, and we need the production of the forms, dies, and molds needed to make that expansion possible. We are seeking $200,000 in funding to make that scale-up happen, and we think that the Solve prize could help us reach that point either directly or through exposure, networking, and project promotion.

We have been applying for Solve programs for years and we have always thought that our work and yours were a great fit!

FdS is open to working together in many ways. We invite activist investors to join us, and help us bring our work to regional and global scale. Once we can pass our current bottlenecks and involve more stakeholders in our solution, we anticipate a dramatic global impact.

We have extensive implementation partners in Haiti, and we are open to all partnerships of interested individuals, organizations, corporations, and institutions.

We feel that all of the above information is relevant to the Andan Prize as well as the work we hope to achieve with Solve.

We feel that all of the above information is relevant to the GM Prize as well as the work we hope to achieve with Solve.

We feel that all of the above information is relevant to the Innovation for Women Prize as well as the work we hope to achieve with Solve.

We feel that all of the above information is relevant to the ServiceNow Prize as well as the work we hope to achieve with Solve.

We feel that all of the above information is relevant to the GSR Prize as well as the work we hope to achieve with Solve.