Wednesday, April 17, 2013

I invested in pig poo and it slowed global warming

About 18 months ago I loaned Julio $25.   Julio, a young Mexican with a few hogs had an idea.  If he could buy the material he could build a digester to turn porcine doo doo into gas for his own use, and he could sell the digested oderless leftovers to gardeners as a rich fertilizer.  His idea would give him 3 valuable products.  Meat, gas, natural fertilizer.

The loan was handled by Kiva.  A micro loan organization.  The crowd funding totaled about $1,500 to Julio.  He has never missed a monthly payment.   I think he has about a year left on the loan, these loans are very low interest and Kiva screens them carefully, default is around 1%.

Julio reports all is well.  Locals buy the fertilizer and the geraniums are beautiful.  The pigs are doing fine.  And the digester is burbing methane into his low pressure gas heating and lighting reducing his utility bills.  What Julio does not report is this digester is keeping methane out of the atmosphere, just a few polluting pigs worth, but still, for my $25 I consider it a great investment in the environment.

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."  Margaret Mead

http://www.kiva.org/home


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