Let the Sun do the work
From time immemorial the people of Madagascar have been cooking their food on wood fires, which requires vast amounts of firewood in the shape of charcoal. A Madagascan household uses about 90 kg of charcoal every month, the cost of which amounts to a quarter of an average monthly income. Both the waste of wood and the expenditures are not necessary, since Madagascar has ideal conditions for the use of solar energy, above all in the southern parts of the island.
ADES produces solar cookers and energy-saving stoves in Madagascar and promotes the use of renewable energy sources. Solar cookers can save huge amounts of wood and charcoal. Thus they contribute considerably to the protection of the climate as well as the biodiversity, and they also open up paths out of poverty.
Solar cookers, therefore, are a great benefit to the population:
- Dependence on wood and charcoal and the resulting costs will decrease.
- A solar cooker pays itself off after only five or six months.
- Cooking with the solar cooker is free of emissions, there is no smoke that affects people’s health and reduces their life expectancy.
- There is no CO2, which is a major cause for the greenhouse effect.
- People do not have to tend cooking fires, which frees them for other, more useful tasks.
- Deforestation is slowed down, which contributes to the conservation of biodiversity.
ADES and Wonderlands
Regula Ochsner
President ADES