Case Study 1: Rural Indian Biogas Project

Most of the families in Rural India use firewood, dried dung cake and/or kerosene as fuel for cooking and lighting. Women and children have to go into the fields or forests for collecting fire wood for about 2 to 3 hours many days in a week.

The women suffer with smoke from the traditional firewood stove and kerosene burning. This indoor air pollution is causing health problems to women and children. Indian rural houses consist of one room with partition for cooking. So the smoke encircles the entire house causing inconvenience to the entire family but mainly to women and children who spend much of their time in the kitchen.

Most of the villages are unclean with unmanaged solid waste, waste from kitchens and waste from the animals. This is a source of poor health but also of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Women do not have their own income and they have to depend on men for their total needs. Many times they can not support their own or their children's health and education.

The farmers' situation is also not good. Because of the indiscriminate use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides the expenditure on agriculture has gone up and the land fertility has come down resulting in lower yields. The use of chemical fertilizers has made the land barren and the water retention capacity of the land has come down drastically.

To change this situation, S K G Sangha, have developed a system called 'Composite vermicompost bio reactor. This system consists of two main parts. One part is a family size bio reactor producing clean gas which can be used for cooking and lighting and the other one is a vermicompost production unit producing high quality fertiliser.

Cattle dung and kitchen soft waste and waste water is used to produce bio gas in a bio reactor. The unmanaged cattle dung can be managed properly if fed into a bio reactor. The reactor produces bio gas which is about 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide along with traces of other gases. This is used as cooking fuel and for lighting in some cases in place of traditional inefficient wood and kerosene stove. Bio gas is a clean and efficient fuel. Because of the bio gas the need for collecting firewood is avoided. The cooking is speeded up and time on cooking is reduced. Women have spare time to take care of their children and their education.

A portion of their spare time is used on the vermicompost production unit which converts unmanaged organic wastes, generated in and around the household and agricultural lands, into nutrient rich manure. Thus two purposes are served, creating cleaner sanitation and producing a valuable organic manure. About 50% of the produced vermicompost will be applied in the beneficiary's own lands to replace chemical fertilizers and pesticides improving the soil fertility and saving the money spent on chemical fertilizers. The remaining manure will be sold in the market that gives regular income to the women. Women now have their own income and can take care of the important family needs like health, children education etc. Rural youth are engaged in the project activity and this will create employment to them and check migration to urban areas.

CarbonAided is working with S K G Sangha to develop a project which will provide 20,000 units in rural areas of the state of Karnataka in southern India. A similar project in a nearby district won an Ashden Award in 2007. Full details of that project including a video and technical report can be found on the Ashden Awards site.