Your kitchen can be a fuel maker

DIGESTER Machine converts kitchen waste into biogas which will meet home cooking needs

MUMBAI: It was during a walk in the evening, two years ago, when 37-year-old mechanical engineer Kabir Udeshi, a resident of Shivaji Park, came upon an open dump. The sight was not new to him but it was the stench emanating from the dump that provoked Udeshi to come up with an easy-to-use waste management system for households.

PRATHAM GOKHALE/HTKabir Udeshi with his organic waste management kit at a house in Santacruz.

In one year, Udeshi and his team took the idea forward and built a machine the size of a standard washing machine, called the ‘Dedko Digester’. The machine converts kitchen waste into biogas and organic fertiliser.

According to Kabir Udeshi, organic waste consists of 70-80% of any household waste and the biogas generated through the machine can provide 40-50% of an average household’s cooking needs. “Once the kitchen waste is collected, it has to be churned and fed into the machine which contains a bacterial culture, mainly methanogens. These bacteria, in the absence of oxygen, break down the waste into biogas and fertiliser,” said Udeshi.

The machine is connected to a multi-layered polymer bag where the biogas is stored. The bag in turn has an outlet that connects it to the stove in the kitchen.

Nikhil Jain, 37, one of the users of this machine and a resident of Santacruz, said, “I have been using this machine for the past year. It’s so easy to use that even my maid knows how to use it now.”

“This machine uses about halfa-unit of electricity a day, which could cost around Rs3, which is hardly anything. Another aspect of it is that there is no smell or stench though it’s processed waste.”

The machine is available for Rs25,000. A sophisticated version of the machine called ‘The Rhino digester’ has the capacity for daily waste from 30 households. This machine available for Rs1,30,000 was designed for residents of housing societies who can pool in money to purchase a machine common for all the residents.

Source: Hindustan Times dated December 21, 2015