Dr. Culhane and Yuliana Banda Zavala demonstrate the workings of the Solar CITIES modified ARTI
August 16, 2014
On a trip to Mexico, Rotoplas engineers surprised Culhane with a Solar CITIES-style modified ARTI digester. They had built the digester in anticipation of his visit. The digester included “microbial motels” to increase surface area. Rotoplas is exploring its own line of rotomolded home biogas systems. The company is already the top producer of home-scale “biodigestores” in central and south America for treating toilet wastes, though these systems capture no gas. For Rotoplas to enter into the small scale biogas market would be a real boon for development!
In 1973, Rotoplas began its operations with spinning-molding technology. It has evolved into one of the most successful and respected rotomolding companies in the world. In 1984, Rotoplas pioneered the replacement of asbestos water tanks with polyethylene and polypropylene materials. As a result, Rotoplas became the industry leader in water capture, storage, and delivery improvements with a current distribution on over 2.5 million “Better Water Systems”. Rotoplas has some 25 fabrication plants including two in Leon, one in Monterey, one in Guadalajara, one in Mexico City, one in Tucsla, and one in Merida. Others span Latin America, from Guatemala to Peru to Argentina and Brazil. This kind of production and distribution network radically lowers transportation and transaction costs and makes it possible for Rotoplas to meet the development needs of a huge and diverse population of clients, consumers, and agencies.
With an annual investment of 1.5% of sales on research and development activities and continuous innovation and improvement and expansion of their product line, Rotoplas is always able to stay ahead of the curve as sociopolitical, financial, and ecological situations change. With its Bano Digno program now providing hundreds of thousands of home-scale biodigester solutions for black water treatment, the stage has been set for Rotoplas to lead the 21st trend toward micro-scale technology.
SolarCITIES, Rotoplas, and other biogas innovators have established that biodigestion can be safely and effectively used to treat household fecal wastes for safe discharge. Biodigestion can also transform all organic residuals (except for lignocellosic materials like branches and other wooden structures) into nitrogen rich liquid fertilizer. In addition, biodigesters capture the photosynthetic energy in food scraps and garden wastes and transform it into methane that can be used in natural gas-powered stoves, generators, refrigerators and process heat equipment. Rotoplas stands to become a world leader in market-based solutions to the food waste problem, and will help to:
- Keep rotting material out of landfill, qualifying for Greenhouse Gas Reduction funds
- Reduce garbage hauling and transport costs
- Reduce or eliminate pests and disease
- Eliminate the deforestation and indoor air pollution that results from biomass cooking and heating
All of this can be done while providing low-cost reliable energy in the form of clean biomethane. Rotoplas is set to emerge as a total environmental services solution provider.
