In southeast Brazil our actions are more present in the States of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In the beginning our main actions were towards poor communities. With the advance of environmental conscience, sectors of middle and high class are becoming interested in our technologies. Economic gain is obtained by reuse of effluent and mainly with the biogas, together with soil, water and air treatment. More people become interested in replicating out integrated treatment system. Isolated cities as Laranjal do Jari in the Acre Amazon Region are interested in more sustainable technologies and OIA was contracted to solve sanitation problems.

Central America and Caribbean

Rural societies, responsible for a high production of residues, are becoming more and more interested in our work. Coffee producers in Central America and Caribbean are utilizing our system even to obtain ISO 14001 Certification with cleaner production. One example is State Coffee of Nicaragua and Benefico Ramirez of Dominican Republic institutions.

In the coffee production mountain areas of Nicaragua projects are mainly towards treatment of human residues. Places that lack of water treatment is directly related to many diseases, especially in the rainy season. Results with our system include less money spent in medicine. Enormous quantities of sickness are caused by lack of convenient water treatment. As another result, coffee residual water is also treated, avoiding river pollution and lost in fish, zooplanktons and phytoplankton. Bad smell was also eliminated, improving people’s daily life. Most schools are located exactly close to rivers. Many companies are now interested in replicating our system and searching for our coordination. The local company that started with our system is now, more than interested in sanitation, improving food production to the benefit of local workers and using bio-digesters also with animal production and improving environment by recycling residues. Orlando Nuñes, representing President Daniel Ortega, was sent to visit our system, interested in eliminating hunger and environmental problems. The idea is to have one bio-digester for each rural family, benefiting 75 thousand families in five years. OIA has also introduced in the region pre-fabricated systems, but there is lack of finance. Central America experience was presented in the 22nd Latin American Conference of Coffee Producers in Sao Salvador – El Salvador 2005. As a result coffee producers from Dominican Republic contacted OIA, viewing electricity production by biogas, in 2006. Small Coffee Producer Associations also showed interest to use our technology in high mountain regions using human, animal and coffee production residues to produce biogas. Together with the University of Jarabacoa, our system is being replicated and diffused through Dominican Republic. OIA specialists are being invited to work on two year projects aiming to capacitate local people. Viva Rio NGO, that has projects in Haiti, also invited our staff to capacitate locals to replicate our technology in that country. First project is being incorporated in Belaire poor community in Port Principe – February and March 2009.

Brazil now

In Brazil we find enormous replicating possibilities, especially for domestic bio-systems. Public and private companies are viewing our technology as a great solution to poor areas, reducing pollution levels in local rivers. Latin America’s biggest sanitation company – SABESP – is an example. Aguas do Imperador Company from Petropolis – State of Rio de Janeiro – is aiming to spread our system to a great number of communities. The local River Basin Committee is financing projects with our technology representing an investment of more than R$ 1 million, always using local workers. Companies that work with other activities are also interested in our system. One example is a plant installed in Espirito Santo State with our technology financed by an export-import company interested in promoting sustainability. This project was chosen, among other 1000, to receive finance from Petrobras (one of world’s biggest oil companies), including research with a local university – FAESA. Brazil’s largest investment – COMPERJ – a gigantic petroleum processing plant – also included our system, also receiving monitoring work promoted by Petrobras. Other projects are also happening with Ouro Preto University in Minas Gerais State. Biogas technology is being studied aiming use for filters, heaters, ovens, lightning, small and large motors. This evolves a great amount of scientific work.

Solving Problems

Our main problem is cultural. People still have problems to accept recycling of human waste. Biomass is usually not included in projects. Advance can be obtained with investments in environmental education and information. People will soon see the benefits.

In Developing Nations, about 20% of the population, live in poverty levels. Many countries invest in distributing free gas, benefiting private oil companies. At the same time these countries have enormous possibilities to invest in biomass energy production. Environmental (less water and air pollution) and economic gains can be very high. Another problem is related to the big corporations that prefer to invest only in large scale projects. Small investments can represent a big sum and local projects can result in significant gains towards the combat of global warming. People from poor countries consume an average of one tree a day, only to cook. Changing this energy source, with small bio-digesters and production of biogas, together with food production can represent an important revolution.