Saturday, October 27, 2007

Pics!


Coffee season is starting.




ripe coffee beans/grains are red








the little coffee procesor at the house


you pour the grains in the top and
the machine takes off the peel/pulp, leaving just the white bean












The white beans, depulped (without the peel)



The leftover pulp (peel)



This leftover pulp is a huge waste issue. It is very acidic, and can easily pollute the water, yet there is no good method for disposing of it, people just dump it wherever they can. And can you imagine the quantity leftover, since everyone is depulping large quantities of coffee for three months. We are hoping to work with the biodigestor latrine to use it to dispose of the pulp and use its gases to cook with.

I don´t know if I´ve talked about this latrine, it´s a project we´re starting next month, which uses the methane gases from human waste to cook with on a gas stove. So it´s avoiding deforestation, since no wood is needed to cook, and it´s a latrine.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I had no idea coffee beans are red at one point. What a cool experience for you. I would love to see that whole process. I hope the latrine project works out though because that does look like an awful lot of waste... sounds like a really inovative idea.

Bring some of that fresh coffee with you when you come home for a visit!