Recycling waste: In Thatta, cows provide what the govt has not — gas for cooking

WWF-P has set up biogas plants in Sindh, K-P and Punjab.

THATTA: At Haji Ramzan Hajeeb village, nothing goes to waste. Ask the man who wakes up early morning, fills up a tank half with cow dung and half with water and then goes off to work, content his family will be able to cook for the day.

The village in Thatta is one of the many that have been equipped with biogas plants - or “gobar” gas plants as displayed in Allah Dino Khaskheli village - by the World Wildlife Fund - Pakistan (WWF-P) in collaboration with Japan. On Sunday, a group of journalists were taken on a tour of the project sites in Thatta.

“Through this plant, people get natural gas to cook three meals a day that they had to make with firewood before,” said Dr Ejaz Ahmed, the deputy director general of WWF-P. “This even helps preserve our forests.”



Under the UNDP’s Early Recovery programme for flood-hit areas, around 2,236 biogas plants have been set up with more than 550 in Sindh alone. The cost of one six to eight cubic metres unit is estimated between Rs70,000 and Rs80,000.

The funding, Dr Ahmed said, was provided by the WWF-P. The villagers, however, provided the labour when needed and were also briefed on the workings of the plant. “For its maintenance, and in case villagers want to make new plants, we made sure that the masons or ‘mistris’ were involved in the process,” Dr Ahmed told The Express Tribune.

How it works

Developing cow dung as an alternative to coal or natural gas is no rocket science, as said and demonstrated by the men in both villages. Dung is mixed with water and put into a fermentation pit. The effervescent gas is directly supplied from a dome-shaped cylinder to the household through pipes.

The remaining organic waste, called slurry, comes out of the other end and is used as fertiliser. According to the WWF-P’s in-charge in Thatta, Ali Hasan Habib, use of dried dung as fertiliser is one of the other main reasons that biogas plants have been set up. “It saves costs and is more effective,” said Habib, pointing to a banana field behind him.

Bringing crops to life

Following the massive floods in 2010 and then the ones this year, farmers have been trying to bring their crops back to life. For most villagers, the “slurry fertiliser” is the main product and the gas a bi-product.

“Where you stand now was all water. All that you see right now was under water,” said farmer Wahid Dino, pointing to his banana field. “On your left are the shorter crops where urea was used while on the right, with the taller crops, is the area where we fertilised with slurry.”

On urea, the crop usually took 45 days to mature, but on slurry it took 30 days with almost 100 per cent more yield, he added.

Dino was not alone in singing praises of the biogas plants. Farmer Sher Ali of another village said his crops not only grow faster but their quality has improved. “I feel this fertiliser [slurry] is more effective and stronger,” he said.

“Women previously used wood to make fire, which burnt their eyes and damaged the utensils, but they now cook at ease. And we are saving money on bags and bags of urea since a better fertiliser is being produced in our own backyard. What more can a farmer want?”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 1^st, 2013.