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PRESS RELEASE

HELP International and the South East Regional College

Subject: Official Launch of The Zero Waste Technologies Innovation Competition

HELP International and South East Regional College are celebrating the inauguration of a Research and Development Partnership on Monday, November 01, 2004.

The development of this partnership began as a result of the need for improved simple low cost appropriate zero waste technologies for HELP’s zero waste community management initiative. These technologies are for use in the home front industries to produce new products from wastes.

1) We consider this the official launch of a Research and Development Partnership between HELP and South East Regional College.

2) The first phase of this partnership is the launching of a Technology Innovation Competition.

3) The Technology Innovation Competition is the first exercise (to be duplicated in future years) of a larger Research and Development partnership to follow.

4) What is unusual about this first R and D 'Technology Innovation' Competition is the critical needs that technology solutions will immediately solve in two nation wide HELP-led projects ongoing in Kenya.

5) The projects are the Zero Waste Community Management Project and its Partner Project: Women Led National Forestation using Family Sector Agro-Enterprise. The project uses Schools across the country (Kenya) as a development agent producing free fruit and woody tree seedlings for their moms' farms).

6) The project technologies being developed (low tech paper mills, fibre board presses, and plastic post makers) act directly to arrest deforestation by creating wood replacement items by recycling paper to create new products or using plastic to create replacement timber products such as plastic posts and plastic bricks.

7) It should be of interest to note that the Fibre board made from recycled paper and recycled cloth, has just won a reward at two levels of a competition for innovation in recycling. The product now goes to a third level competition in Nairobi, Kenya. Again, the consumers suggested the fibre board be made larger (up to 4 x 8 feet) so that it can have wider applications in the construction industry. This is precisely what The South East Regional College is taking on as one of the three Zero Waste Project technology advances it is working on.

8) The three R and D Technology Challenges the College is taking on with HELP include:

a) Creation of a Fibre Board Press and Frame which can increase the current 24 x 24 inch fiber board being produced by the HELP Zero Waste project to a 4 x 8 foot fibre board. The new board will be much larger and therefore have more applications in the construction industry. Also, due to hydraulic compression of circa 50 lb per sq. inch the new fibre boards will dry much faster than the current five days, and will be much stronger due to the compression system.

b) Modification of HELP's Zero Waste Project's manual and bicycle driven paper mill prototypes which are not yet operational. This will also include the creation of a motorized version (circa 1 hp) of the manual paper mills. These are utilized for creating pulp from waste paper for the creation of the fiber board and for the creation of hand made paper.

c) Creation of a Plastic Post Manufacturing Unit that utilizes a metal pipe mold, semi-molten heating system, and hydraulic compression to push the semi molten plastic into the pipe mold. Air compression from a normal air compressor tire valve unit pushes the plastic post out of the pipe mold after cooling in a water vat.

9. The emphasis is on profoundly low cost and low tech. The technologies must be affordable to groups of ten women led Home Associations in Kenya whose individual household incomes average $30 to $100 per month.

10. The technologies are part of some twenty technologies being introduced by the Zero Waste Project beginning in the slums of Kenya' s largest cities. The technologies create the possibility of arresting an environmental emergency of waste management breakdown, rivers laden with sewer wastes and household garbage.

The innovations allow each group of ten house Home Associations to segregate their wastes into nine types: toilet wastes, food wastes, paper, plastic, cloth, metal, charcoal dust, ash, and tree/vegetable seeds. The innovation technologies will provide the means by which each type of waste is manufactured into new products.

So, at the same time the community environs and river is cleaned of all imaginable type of wastes, the segregated wastes create a multitude of new industries:

a) bio-gas from toilet wastes (prototype planned for later this year)

b) compost soil from toilet and food wastes (ongoing)

b) seeds for HELP's national free tree seedling and forestation program (ongoing)

c) paper for fiber board and hand made paper industries (on going)

d) cooking briquettes from charcoal waste, waste paper and earth (on going)

e) plastic lumber from plastic wastes (Prototype stage only...successful demos)

f) fingerling tree bag industry and tree mulch from waste plastic (ongoing)

g) soil conditioner industry from waste styrofoam and waste sponge (currently starting)

11. Donor Recognition

a). Donors for the Zero Waste Project in Kenya and its counterpart Public Engagement Programming in Canada include: The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the Saskatchewan council for International Cooperation (SCIC), and 10 Saskatchewan Schools.

b) HELP is providing $5 000.00 for material and cash scholarship awards to the College students winning Technology Innovation Teams.

c) Other important material contributions to assist with R & D come from:

    - Mryglod Steel and Metal Inc.: $1 500.00

    - Stewart Steel: $2 000.00

Official Launch date: Monday, November 01, 2004

Time: 3:30 pm

Location: HELP International’s Ecological and International Development Theme Park, Weyburn

Contact: Kabuya Muepu, HELP International. Trent Jordens: Weyburn South East Regional College

News Release

July 14, 2004

SaskPower - 423

SASKPOWER & HELP INTERNATIONAL PARTNER FOR ENVIRONMENT
SaskPower Shand Greenhouse is providing a $25,000 donation to HELP
International to support environmental conservation projects in Saskatchewan.
 
"SaskPower strives to achieve a balance between providing safe, reliable,
cost-effective power, and protecting the environment," Minister responsible
for SaskPower Frank Quennell said. "The SaskPower Shand Greenhouse provides
the corporation with a unique opportunity to partner with environmental
organizations like HELP International to find solutions to environmental
challenges."
 
HELP International's Carbon Sequestration and Phytoremediation Project
involves the planting of high water use trees around landfills and sewage
lagoons in urban communities to decontaminate soils and waters before they
reach rivers and underground aquifers. Communities participating in this
project include Weyburn, Arcola, Stoughton and Radville.
 
HELP International is a federally incorporated charity that works in
partnership with government, fellow charities, local community based
organizations, and the business community in the development of environmental
projects.
 
In addition to the $25,000 financial contribution, SaskPower Shand Greenhouse
has donated 65,000 tree seedlings to this project. Once mature, each tree
planted as part of the project will absorb approximately 4.5 kg of carbon
dioxide each year, which will help offset the greenhouse gas emissions created
at SaskPower's coal-fired generating facilities.
 
Other HELP International projects supported by SaskPower include:
 
- The Souris River and Farm Protection Program, which resulted in the planting
of 265,000 trees along the Souris River and Long Creek Watersheds to assist in
the protection of natural habitat, enhance water quality and control soil
erosion. Forty per cent of the trees used for this project were donated by the
SaskPower Shand Greenhouse. - The Zero Waste Program for Schools, which brings
students from schools across the province to day camps at the International
Development Theme Park near Weyburn, where they learn about a zero waste
lifestyle and participate in tree planting for HELP International's
environmental projects.
 
Since 1991, the SaskPower Shand Greenhouse has distributed millions of tree,
grass and shrub seedlings to community and non-profit groups for use in land
reclamation and other environmental planting projects.
 
 
 
For More Information, Contact:
 
Larry Christie
SaskPower
Regina
Phone: (306) 566-3167





Minister responsible for SaskPower, Frank Quennell, hands in the cheque to HELP International's Executive Director, Rodney Sidloski.



Minister Frank Quennell and HELP's Rodney Sidloski plant a symbolic tree (cottonwood from Shand Greenhouse) at the project site.

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