SHI Techniques

Honduran farmer Don Betillo (right) and 80 other farming families working with Sustainable Harvest International in Central America are now able to harness the methane gas created naturally from decomposing manure and other organic materials. Don Betillo is biogas

standing next to his new biogas digester. The digester is essentially a long plastic tube into which families pour water and manure mixed with other organic material. As the material within the digester decomposes in an anaerobic setting, methane gas is released. The gas can then be tapped and used for cooking. Francisca Sosa (below left) uses her methane cook stove to prepare traditional rice and beans each day. She reports that she can cook for eight hours a day on the methane produced from her family's digester. An added bonus is that the effluent from the biogas digester is also a powerful organic fertilizer.

BiogasStove

Families, such as Francisca Sosa's, have requested our support in building biogas digesters because of the many hours of labor and the number of trees that are saved by using the cleaner-burning gas stove instead of firewood. The Sosas and many other families are conserving resources while improving their standard of living. A $100 donation to SHI builds a biogas digester like Don Betillo's. CLICK HERE to give a biogas digester to a family in need of your support!

Click on the links below to download a pdf version of a manual on biogas digester construction:

Manual in English

Manual en Espanol

Return to Techniques