21 Apr 2014
12 Days in Benin: A Community Ready for Organics Recycling
One woman’s 12 day journey in Benin leads to a community-wide organics recycling campaign.
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This episode corresponds to Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 of our online course.
In this fifteenth episode, we speak to scientist Dr. Vara Vissa about her short trip to Benin, Africa, and the spontaneous grassroots organics recycling campaign she helped create with the help of local students and community leaders. Vara saw a wealth of opportunities for the local communities in the organic material that lies in makeshift landfills, and discovered that the open-minded and proactive people of Benin are ready and willing to make this change happen.
Thank you to Big Hanna Composter for making this episode possible.
The original since 1991, and now installed in more than 25 countries, Big Hanna’s five standard models of on-site in-vessel composters range from 75 to 2400 kg of food waste per week, for housing areas, prison, schools, canteens and restaurants. For more information, visit www.bighanna.com
Camilo
Hi, mi name is Camilo from Medellín – Colombia. This kind of efforts to take advantage of the organic waste to produce compost is a plausible initiative trully necessary now a days. The global situation shows a real food shortages and there is not resources to fund agriculture programs focused to poor countries. our compromise with the next generations is to ensure the possibility to access to healthy food, avoiding the damage to the environmental produced by the human activities. I would like to congratulate to Dr Vara, because I know her from many years ago and I had the privilege to work with her. I am sure that her initiative to create awareness in the new generations about the importance of recycling is a small step that have to be imitated by everyone. Best regards to Vara.
Eleen Murphy
Hi Camilo, thank you for your message! We are so glad you enjoyed the episode and support Dr. Vara’s efforts to turn organics into compost in Benin. She is doing incredible work. It is important, as you say, to support such efforts globally to build resilience against climate change and support the local populations. We will pass on your regards to Dr. Vara.