Reuse and savings promote two Ecuadorian plans

Ecuadornews:

In Ecuador, 190 million liters of vegetable oil are consumed per year, of which 30% is discarded and of that almost 70% comes from homes and the rest is industrial, quoted Ana Vega, project coordinator of ARC Pipper, harvester and exporter of this matter.

This waste oil sometimes ends up contaminating bodies of water or as raw material for the production of balanced pigs and chickens. That, according to studies that it handles, could have a risk for the health.

For these reasons, the Microfranchises project was born, which brings together women for the collection of oil. The plan was one of the two national finalists in the Green Latin Awards, which took place this week in Guayaquil.

The project works since 2014 with the Patronato San José de Quito, where they deliver school books to mothers in exchange for used oil. Since 2016, they have gathered 300 recyclers. For each bottle of used oil they receive $ 0.20.

“With this they could earn $ 460 a month, taking into account that today many of them do not even reach half of a basic salary,” says Vega.

The collected are responsible for exporting it to Europe for the manufacture of biodiesel. The long-term goal is to collect the annual waste from the country and build a biodiesel plant in Quito.

Another project finalist of the contest, that yesterday culminated with the awards, was Galápagos Verde 2050 of the Charles Darwin Foundation and led by Patricia Jaramillo.

Given the predictions of water scarcity and taking into account that in Santa Cruz rainfall can be 1 cm³ per year, the biologist says that with local authorities and volunteers since 2014 work on two priority components: the ecological restoration of ecosystems and practices sustainable agricultural Today it is done on 6 islands and in 70 sites.

In that they use technologies such as Groasis (propylene bucket), which provides water in drops every day to the species, saving 99% of water from a common irrigation. “What we want is that in Galapagos species and crops are produced all year round, we have complemented two major fields: preserve the islands and meet the needs of the human being.”

10,000 geo-referenced plants have been planted, 100% of a stone material mine has been restored on Floreana Island, cultivation of ecological corridors to prevent the entry and death of iguanas on the Baltra airport runway.

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Awards

Categories

Ten projects won the Green Latin Awards last night. In the Water category, the award went to Guateverde de Guatemala for the treatment of wastewater.

Winners

In Forests and Flora, the Colombian project Restoration Ecological Revive Spring was the winner. In Sustainable Cities, the first place was for Toas Ecoaldeas from Venezuela. (I)

Source: https://www.eluniverso.com/guayaquil/2018/08/17/nota/6908786/reuso-ahorro-promueven-dos-planes-pais