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Mayan Hope is currently working to develop several projects to help in the preservation of the environment and the betterment of the communities here in the Guatemalan highlands.

• Paper Firebricks
• Solar Ovens
• Composting Toilets

Most people that have never traveled to Guatemala probably think of the country as being hot and tropical as a result of its' southern latitude. However, more than half of the country and the majority of the population live in mountainous areas referred to as the highlands. Typically in these areas the days are warm and the nights quite cool year-round. Even in the hottest months of summer, nighttime temperatures in much of the highlands can be down in the 50 degree Fahrenheit range. Because of its' availability and low cost, the vast majority of villagers living in the highlands use wood as a source of fuel for both heating and cooking. This fact makes firewood a major commodity throughout most of the highlands. People (mostly women and girls) often spend a good portion of their day gathering firewood for the family or the family must spend a major portion of their income to purchase firewood. Other sources of fuel such as electricity, gas, coal, or fuel oil are either just not available or are cost-prohibitive in most cases.

While firewood as a fuel source can be looked at as beneficial from the point of renewablity as compared to fossil fuels (trees can grow in 10 to 40 years as opposed to millions of years for fossil fuels), the overuse of firewood can have disastrous effects on the environment causing things like de-forestation and ultimately land erosion. In addition, most homes here have open and generally un-vented stoves or fireplaces that fill the home with heavy smoke and coat walls and ceiling with a heavy creosote like residue. Heating and daily cooking under these conditions is believed to be a major source or respiratory problems particularly among women and children and is considered to be a major cause of blindness and reduced life span among village women. While it is unlikely that we can ever eliminate the use of wood as a fuel source here, Mayan Hope is working to develop at least two projects that could at least reduce the use of firewood while at the same time provide other significant benefits.

Paper Firebricks

Mayan Hope has begun work with a local group and the city of Nebaj for the purpose of producing paper firebricks from trash paper that would normally be just buried in the local landfill. The production of these paper bricks is a very low-tech procedure and simply requires that the trash paper and cardboard be collected and soaked in water for a period of about four days in large barrels. Once the paper is prepared in this manner, it is then put into a simple molding device where most of the water is squeezed out by hand. The brick is then removed from the mold and allowed to dry at which time it can be used like a piece of firewood. Experience has shown that most stoves would use about four of these bricks an hour and could significantly reduce the need for firewood. Other sources of burnable materials can also be added to these bricks such as sawdust or even dried grasses. While these paper bricks are not the perfect solution to the firewood problem and we could never produce enough bricks to completely replace the use of wood, we would at least like to use these in places like the school cafeterias or provide them to the neediest of families. The production of these bricks also has several additional benefits beyond simply reducing the need for wood as a fuel source.

1. It recycles the used paper products and reduces the landfill burden.
2. It can provide a few jobs for those needing work.
3. Paper bricks are a cleaner fuel source than firewood reducing smoke and toxins.
4. It puts us in a position of working with the city and reducing the trash collection problem. In the future we would also hope to be able to begin a process of trash separation and the bundling of other things like glass and plastic for re-sale to commercial recycling operations.

Solar Ovens

The principle of solar ovens and cookers has been around for well over a hundred years. The solar oven is a very simple device, just an insulated box lined with foil or reflective material with a glass or plastic top. It works by using the greenhouse effect with sunlight entering through the glass and being absorbed and reflected by the foil-covered walls as infrared radiation or heat. The glass or plastic blocks the infrared, so the heat stays in the box, where it cooks food slowly but steadily much like a crock pot. The box itself can be produced from metal, plywood or even cardboard and are relatively inexpensive to produce.

The widespread use of solar ovens in individual homes could significantly reduce the need for individuals to gather firewood and reduce the smoke and pollution within the home and the environment. However, just producing and distributing these devices does not insure their use. To do this requires complete community interaction and a fairly extensive educational process. A number of these ovens were produced and distributed to developing countries during the 1960's and 70's with very limited success primarily, we believe, because these efforts failed to have the community and social interaction necessary to get people to accept them and the educational process necessary to use them properly.

What we propose to do is develop women's groups and training sessions with community members to teach others how to make and use the ovens. This is primarily an educational process but, we feel that with this approach, one that will spread successfully throughout the community. Obviously solar ovens cannot work without sunshine, so we could never expect any family to use this type of device to prepare all their meals. However, if we could just get the average family to prepare 3 or 4 meals a week using sunshine for fuel, the results could be dramatic over time.

Solar Oven Design This is the type of oven design that we propose to build here in the Nebaj-Ixil area and was developed by the Central America Solar Energy Project and is currently used by Amigas del Sol in other areas of Guatemala.

Composting Toilets

More information on the composting toilets to come...