BY RICHARD LEE

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A recycling plant co-op is offering jobs for dozens of families in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and renewed hope in the city’s poverty-stricken, crime-ridden Carrefour-Feuilles district.

The Decheteries De Carrefour Feuilles facility recycles sawdust, paper and cardboard to produce and market cooking briquettes, while helping to reduce the city’s waste problem.

Dubbed “Love ‘N Haiti,” the recycling project is among 12 finalists in the British Broadcasting Corp.’s World Challenge 2009 competition, in which three international projects that “show enterprise and innovation at a grassroots level” will be awarded next month. 

Funded jointly by the United Nations Development Programme and South-South Cooperation (the governments of India, Brazil and South Africa), the project already has generated more than 350 jobs, according to Haitian native Martine Jean, a local attorney and film producer.

Jean organized a recent news event to encourage online votes for the project.

“As more plants are built throughout the country, that number will escalate and it is expected that this project will be a model for other countries to create jobs and make a positive impact (on) the global environment,” Jean said.

Several Haitian Hollywood celebrities and at least one local business leader have voiced support for the Love ‘N Haiti project recently. Actress Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon, formerly of the “Jamie Foxx Show,” actress and documentary producer Claudine Oriol, and Operation Hope Senior Adviser Fred D. Smith, are among them. They believe the project has far-reaching implications.

A glance at the country’s recent past partly reveals why: Haiti has had significant deforestation, political turmoil, and recent natural and ecological disasters that have  further devastated the country as well. 

Last year, in one of the Caribbean’s worst disasters of recent years, four storms struck the nation of 9 million people, one after another, in the space of 30 days. 

“It (the Love ‘N Haiti project) represents a new solution to the country’s economic and social problems and an alternative to people cutting down trees for fuel,” Jean said.

Actress Beauvais-Nilon, also of Haitian descent, has hopes for the project.

“We need to help Haiti regain its potential,” she said. “I am raising two half-Haitian children. It is important for me to take them to Haiti one day and be proud.”  

“Turning common paper products into cooking briquettes is a fantastic recycling project,” she added.

Port-au-Prince residents already use the recycled briquettes for cooking as well as heating, according to Smith of Operation Hope, who recently visited the facility.

They are made from ordinary paper and newspaper materials that come from residents and businesses, he said, adding the cardboard comes from boxes in which items have been shipped.  

Smith added that paper items used in the process are suitable for cooking food since they do not come from contamination sources such as dumps or landfills.

The idea is to keep these materials away from landfills, he said.   

However, Dr. Roger A. Clemens, of the USC School of Pharmacy, an expert in nutrition, the food industry, food toxicology and other areas, offers another perspective. 

“The concept of the fuel briquettes is a good idea,” said the professor of pharmaceutical sciences and associate director of the Regulatory Science Program. “One of the many challenges with the use of these local, unprocessed, and apparently unclean products, is food safety.”

Clemens said that the potential of unburned components and smoke entering the food supply and conceivably contaminating the food is a significant concern. 

Contaminates including heavy metals and unburned substances in the fuel briquettes could lead to greater public health problem in poverty-stricken communities throughout the country, according to Clemens.   

“Bottom line, the concept of developing these briquettes to improve recycling of potential waste and to provide employment for Haitians is good for the people and the environment,” he said.

However, he added, “The unintended personal and public health consequences of the production and burning of these waste-laden briquettes deserve considerable attention.”

Attracting considerable attention from international investors through the BBC world competition is what proponents hope to achieve for the project and the country.

A major boost came in August when former President Bill Clinton brought 250 potential investors to the Haitian Diaspora Unity Congress in Miami to stimulate interest. 

“Being selected as a finalist is in this world competition is extremely valuable to Haiti,” Smith said. “Even if Haiti does not finish in first place, participating will give the country credibility with international investors. It tells the international banking world that Haiti is trying to improve the environment.” 

BBC world competition winners will be announced on Dec. 5 in an awards ceremony at The Hague, the de facto judicial capital of the United Nations. Finalists with the most online votes will receive a $20,000 grant to invest in its project.

Two grants of $10,000 will be awarded to runners-up.

“If Haiti wins or even places the grant money will be implemented immediately or soon thereafter,” Jean said.

Online voting ends on Nov. 13. On the Net: www.theworldchallenge. co.uk.