Destruction from the quake
When most people go on vacation, they try to get as far away as possible from anything that reminds them of work. Not me– on my recent trip to Peru, I visited two biodiesel production facilities.
The first refinery I toured was in Pisco, located four hours south of Lima. Pisco had been in economic decline for decades; it was dealt a nearly fatal blow when an 8.0 earthquake leveled 85% of the city in 2007.
Two years after the first emergency responders arrived, when Pisco was on the front page of news sites around the world, the scene is still bleak. Walking from one makeshift neighborhood to the next, the piles of rubble and toppled adobe homes are unavoidable as they lie exactly as they were the day after the earthquake leveled the town, when over 500 people died and 1,300 were injured.
The government erected walls to hide the makeshift temporary shelters that have become permanent residences. The citizens of Pisco call these post-quake government construction projects “walls of shame”.
A partnership between Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) and Burners without Borders (BWB) is showing just how much can grow out of the rubble. These two organizations are part of the second phase of emergency relief. Every day teams of volunteers head out into the city to pour concrete slabs for new homes, build composting toilets, and help erect new homes. In an effort to fund these projects and show that sustainable business can thrive in places that have faced a disaster, PSF and BSB decided to make biodiesel. They will be able to sell and trade the fuel to enable them to continue their work, while teaching how sustainable business can be formed and thrive in places not usually considered when people imagine green enterprise.
BSB produces biodiesel from used cooking oil collected from local factories, restaurants and kitchens, and sells or barters the fuel to local truckers. I observed a BSB representative trading a few gallons of biodiesel in return for towing a cement mixer to a work site.
One important aspect of biodiesel production in Pisco is that everything is sourced from within Peru. The refinery is a perfect example of engineering prowess and MacGyver-esque ingenuity. At the heart of the biodiesel project is a teaching component; local restaurant owners and truck drivers, visiting biofuel enthusiasts, and anyone else who is interested, are welcome to learn how the “waste” from the fryer can be turned into fuel.
Two years ago, scenes from Pisco, Peru mirrored the images broadcast from Haiti a couple of weeks ago, and now PSF and BSB are showing how to make a product that will power trucks and generators, and also empower those who lost everything to begin again.
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