Turning pest into profit: water hyacinth biogas project in India

Earlier we noted that one of the world's most damaging weeds, the water hyacinth, holds a lot of potential as a bioenergy feedstock, especially in the tropics where the invasive species with its incredible biomass productivity (17 tonnes per hectare per day, doubling its biomass each week) untiringly colonizes backwaters, rivers, tributaries, lakes and ponds, where it absorbs a large quantity of nitrogen, phosphorus and nutrients from water. It affects inland navigation and poses serious threats to fishing, irrigation and the drinking water supplies of millions of people.

Now the Kottappuram Integrated Development Society (KIDS) of India which promotes 'bottom-up' environmental and bioenergy services for thousands of poor people, is taking on its most challenging project to date: using the hyacinth as a major resource to enhance access to energy, drinking water and mobility. With the support of the India-Canada Environment Facility (ICEF), KIDS will implement the Water Hyacinth Project through "self-help groups" (an approach often found in India, whereby villagers teach each other how to implement projects).

Organic products instead of plastics
"The project will provide livelihood for poor rural women. It is expected to become a model for eco-restoration of water bodies infested with water hyacinth," KIDS Director Fr Johnson Panketh says [G-cache]. The local bodies and the government spent a major portion of their revenue on de-weeding water hyacinth. But according to KIDS, they failed miserably in their mission as the weed spreads incredibly fast. Under these circumstances, the research wing of KIDS explored the possibility of converting the water hyacinth's fibres as a raw material to make value-added products like bags, purses, baskets and containers.

“The project will be instrumental in ensuring cleaner water bodies. It will also reduce the cost of de-weeding and serve as an alternative for plastic products. It will go a long way in influencing policy makers to formulate effective and profitable management of inland water resources infested with water hyacinth,” said Fr Jobby Kallarackal, Assistant Director, KIDS. Training would be given to 10 self-help groups for skill upgrading and design development of water hyacinth handicraft. Awareness programmes will also be held at various villages, said Sunny George, project director.

Organic fertilizer and biogas
KIDS also found additional advantage in the project by making high-quality vermi compost and vermi water which can be used as fertiliser, Fr Panketh said.
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At a two-day state-level dissemination workshop entitled "Water hyacinth - A menace turned into resource" on the KIDS' campus at Kottappuram, Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran, who was the chief guest at the function, said that the Water Hyacinth Project had a futuristic vision. He inaugurated the biogas plant functioning with water hyacinth as raw material. "It is an innovative natural resource management project which should be replicated in many areas to remove the menace while making effective utilisation of the resource potential for a livelihood", said Satyanarayana, Director of ICEF.

Water hyacinth biogas projects would be very beneficial in Central Africa, where the weed poses great damage to the livelihoods of many people.