Solomon Airlines and five Solomon Islands organisations partner with Nufuels on World Environment Day

Solomon Airlines and five government, council, and private organisations have partnered with Nufuels Ltd, in a street cleanup today to mark 2022 World Environment Day.

The national carrier and clean technology company Nufuels, the developers of simple ‘waste to energy' technology, announced a partnership in April.

Today they were joined by Solomon Islands Ports Authority, Solomon Power, Tourism Solomons, the Waste Management & Pollution Control/Environment Unit of the Ministry of Environment & Conservation, and the Rotaract Club of Solomon Islands in a World Environment Day initiative. 

Volunteer staff teams collected rubbish from Honiara streets between Commonwealth Street, and Kukum SDA to Lawson Tama. After sorting and bagging, suitable plastics will be delivered to the Design Technology Centre for processing through the Nufuels waste to fuel processing equipment.

Next week, the cleanup effort will be followed by training and demonstrations showing firsthand how the plastics collected can be converted into low-cost fuel.

Soft plastics of any kind, PET drink bottles, broken crates, plastic buckets, and other items can be used in the Nufuels process.

Under a United Nations Small Project Fund initiative, Nufuels currently has three waste processing conversion systems to be deployed to St Martin’s Rural Training Centre Honiara, Kaotave Rural Training Centre, Guadalcanal, and St Peter’s Rural Training Centre, Gizo, Western Province including the Plasticwise Gizo group.   

The systems are being built by the Design and Technology Centre in partnership with Nufuels.

“Using simple technology we recover usable energy from waste plastic, and through a process called pyrolysis, convert it into low-cost fuel,“ said Leigh Ramsey, Managing Director of Nufuels.

“Under our program, we provide communities with this technology as well as operational training to help support households, and we encourage using this recovered energy in place of purchased fuels.

”Recovered energy also has an estimated 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over standard fuels, which is a very important consideration in a broader climate action context,” he said.

Brett Gebers, Chief Executive Officer of Solomon Airlines said today’s clean-up effort and the forthcoming training activity and demonstration are important steps in spreading further awareness about the potential environmental and social benefits of the program.

“We are pleased to add our support as we see positive possibilities for the Solomon Islands and for communities in the broader Pacific,” he said.

“Through activities as simple as a street cleanup effort by our teams, operator training for community members, and a demonstration of the waste to fuel process, we are opening eyes to the potential of this technology,” he said.

“Through our partnership with Nufuels, we also aim to discover how we can utilise by-products in Solomon Airlines' own operations.

“In the longer term, this could include the development of bio-diesel for initial use in the Solomon Airlines ground fleet, and the establishment of a processing system accessible in the Henderson area,” he said.