PHILIPPINES: Filipino scientists convert kitchen waste into cooking gas to help counter rising fuel prices

Record ID: 793122

  • Title: PHILIPPINES: Filipino scientists convert kitchen waste into cooking gas to help counter rising fuel prices
  • Date: 3rd May 2007
  • Summary: MEN EATING AT WILLIE'S DELICIOUS EATERY RESTAURANT STAFF MINDING FOOD DISPLAY CLOSE UP OF KITCHEN WASTE BEING TRANSFERRED TO A SMALL BUCKET DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (DOST) RESEARCH STAFF STIRRING BUCKET CONTAINING KITCHEN WASTE AND WATER VARIOUS OF RESEARCHERS FUNNELING KITCHEN WASTE INSIDE PLASTIC "BIO-DIGESTER" "BIO-DIGESTER" HOLE BEING COVERED
  • Embargoed: 18th May 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Philippines
  • Country: Philippines
  • Topics: Nature / Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVAELR6PQQ9A2ITDILZRKPGKJCIP
  • Story Text: With rising fuel prices eating starting to burden poor families and small restaurant businesses, scientists in the Philippines have developed a technology which turns kitchen waste, animal manure and other biodegradable waste into cooking fuel.
    The biogas is expected to help restaurant owners like Will Andalit, who quit high school 20 years to set up a roadside eatery. But his overhead coasts are bloated by rising liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) prices which now cost 500 pesos (10.50 USD) for an 11kg cylinder. His restaurant consumes five of these each month.
    "Companies sometimes lower the price of gas by fifty centavos (0.01 USD) but when they increase the price, it is always very high. For restaurant operators like myself, it surely is a problem but what can we do?" he says.
    The "bio-digester", created by the Philippines Department of Science and Technology (DOST) comes in three prototypes. They can be filled with 200 liters of biodegradable kitchen waste and produce up to 150 liters of biogas overnight.
    It is basically an airtight drum into which organic materials such as leftover food, leaves, peels and animal manure are put. The waste is converted to fuel in a process called microbial digestion, where the waste materials undergo fermentation process.
    "The biogas that will be produced by the biogas digester or plastic containers is the result of the degradation of organic materials. These organic materials are usually biodegradable," said Dr. Christopher Silverio, chief of the Environmental Division of the Industrial Technology Development Institute under the DOST.
    "Liquefied petroleum gas or other source of fuels is very expensive. This portable biogas digester can be easily fabricated and cost effective and cheaper and also can be a main source of fuel for cooking or for lighting," he added.
    Once done the gas is transferred to a holder, which is connected through pipes to a kitchen stove. The gas can sustain one hour of cooking, and two bio-digesters are ideal for a five-member family who eats three meals a day. Once mass produced, the plastic bio-digester plus the gas holder will be sold for about 5,000 pesos (100 USD). A metal biodigester designed for restaurants is projected to cost P20,000 ($416).
    Greater Manila produces an estimated 600,000 tonnes of garbage a day and the idea of a biogas alternative to cooking fuel is already being welcomed by restaurants because they would be able to re-use the waste they produce.
    "If restaurants have a lot of waste and we just throw them away, of course it will add up to our waste disposal problem. If we can use it for our benefit - why not, why not," said Bienbenido Balana, owner of "Steak of the Nation".
    His business consumes seven LPG tanks a week.
    But for the rural poor who have little money to spare and cannot afford a 100USD bio-digester, the new invention may not be a godsend.
    Seventy-eight-year-old farmer Rita dela Paz has resorted to using fire wood to cook in order to save money, using her precious LPG tank only on rainy days.
    "Yes you can probably save money using kitchen waste for cooking but where do you think will I find kitchen waste?" she said.
    Whatever biodegradable waste her family collects is used to feed their ducks and chicken which they sell to make a living.
    In the Philippines, nearly 50 percent of the estimated 87 million population live on 100 pesos (2 USD) a day.
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