December 4, 2007

An initiative driven by the French national stud is seeing a return to the use of eco-friendly horses for a number of jobs in the country's villages.

Seventy towns in France have made the switch to horse power.

Horses and carts are being promoted as viable alternatives for the likes of collecting recycling and even replacing the school bus.

The French National Stud Organisation (FNSO) took the opportunity to promote the idea at a recent meeting of mayors.

The historic stud, set up about four centuries ago to provide France with war horses, says the idea promotes sustainable development and a return to humanity.

A multi-purpose cart, called the hippoville, has even been developed with removable seating to make it adaptable for a number of jobs. They can be built for €11,500 ($NZ22,000). The hippoville has been designed with indicator lights and high-tech disc brakes.

Such carts have already been pressed into use and project head Olivier Linot says 70 towns have so far made the switch.

One is St-Pierre-sur-Dives, in Normandy, where horses and carriages have replaced school buses. Nearby, in the seaside town of Trouville, horse-drawn carts are collecting recycling. Still more are helping in street cleaning.

He expects at least 30 more towns to adopt horses and carts for some operations next year.

Critics point to the horses' substantial dung output, but the project's backers insist that horses are environmentally friendly, and provide other benefits, too.

The horses and carts, Linot says, improve job satisfaction, reduce stress, and have proved ideal for certain kinds of work in towns, particularly tasks that involve a lot of stopping and starting.

The programme is being studied to determine its overall carbon footprint, with supporters pointing to the recyclable nature of the horses' output, as opposed to the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels, which had previously been tied up in carbon beneath the earth's crust.