Fuego del Sol Haiti / FdS Haiti

After 16 years of working on Hispaniola, the FdS design team has identified several key expansion opportunities which have the potential to be directly addressed by the Elevate Prize implementation model. The majority of Haiti lacks access to consistent electricity and, sadly, plastic waste practically covers the island. FdS proposes using its proprietary ecological efficient biomass stove technology as a replacement for the electrically-generated heating elements in Precious Plastic open source recycling machines to introduce revolutionary off-grid plastic waste recycling to previously unserved regions. Independent third-party research by the CCA and ENEA has verified that the biomass combustion technology in FdS cookstoves is by far the most efficient and least polluting cooking source available in Haiti (report summarized here). The temperature range required to melt and recycle many varieties of plastic is identical to that required for cooking food. Global attention has been provided to ecological cooking, but almost no similar attention has been directed to using efficient ecological cooking technology for industrial purposes. The demand in Haiti is strong to expand the utilization of FdS technology for recycling purposes. (Example 100K expansion budget.) Success in the Elevate Prize program can turn this potential into reality. 

The globally destructive issue of waste plastics is dramatically worse in Haiti. Thousands of tons of plastic being dumped in the oceans or piled and burned. Our turn-key solution, once implemented in Haiti, can be successfully expanded and up-scaled throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Other recycling projects in Haiti focus on collection, baling, and international sales, but every shipping-container of plastics leaving Haiti takes 2 full-time jobs from Haiti to the location where the plastics are actually recycled. FdS is already the largest volume recycled products producer in Haiti with our paper-cardboard-sawdust fuel briquettes. Now, by implementing the complete tested solutions offered by Precious Plastic into Haiti, FdS can expand into producing plastic products from available plastic products as well as producing complete turn-key SME shipping-container recycled products production centers for implementation throughout Haiti and for shipping throughout the region and beyond.

FdS Haiti facilitates ecologically /socially beneficial development in Haiti and the DR, as seen in our documentary. Local people are consulted and empowered throughout the FdS co-creation, R&D, implementation process. Each financially sustainable FdS project builds on existing FdS activities, growing an eco-system of mutually beneficial developmental activities in conjunction with community, international, and local partners.

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 off-grid locations to make paper and plastic recycling more accessible worldwide. 

FdS will produce complete turn-key recycled products production centers that can be implemented by small and medium enterprises throughout Haiti. 

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 the machinery from Precious Plastic, FdS teams in Haiti will replicate and improve the PP open source design to ecologically function off-grid: The design innovation teams of FdS 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 the principles of Behavioral Economics, including the Listen. Lead. Listen Again model. First, we listen to our Haitian partners /advisors to learn what would make their lives better. 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.

FdS briquette stoves produce considerably fewer greenhouse gasses than the charcoal ones primarily used by the target demographic in Haiti. They also produce less carbon monoxide which has been the cause of numerous deaths in Haiti. FdS briquettes have many advantages: they are made from 100% recycled materials; they are non-carbonized, so 100% of the source-fuel material goes into the finished briquette, and none is burned away in production. Also, the current FdS stove model has an efficiency of 45%, magnitudes above Haiti's status quo cooking methods. 

A major globally recycled product is plastic and sand paving bricks. Ecologically, this can be a huge step forward as producing concrete binder (aka Portland Mix) is a very energy and carbon intensive process. However, the major downside as currently implemented by other organizations is that many of the projects use a tremendously inefficient combustion process to melt the plastics. This wastes fuel, burns a high percentage of the plastic, making it unusable, and exposes the workers to ultra-toxic, highly carcinogenic burning plastic fumes. Now, as FdS expands into plastic recycling, the same levels of efficiency and health-focused technology will expand beyond cooking into industrial materials, product production, and plastic waste processing.