In India, man builds machine to convert waste to energy

At the Global Investor’s Meet last week, a man named Annadasan P was seen turning waste into energy. He was manning his organic waste-to-energy converter, which took him three years to build.

The converter has a 10-litre capacity set-up produces up to 1 cubic output of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) which can be tapped through a tube and used for cooking. That’s almost an hour of gas with your stove on high-flame for every half capacity of the drum.

“It is not run by any motors or batteries and is completely self-sufficient,” says Annadasan to the New Indian Express.

He said that the converter can process any kind of organic waste. “Every kind of organic waste from food waste, leftovers, stock water to even animal wastes can be used in it. Cow dung is not favourable as it produces only 1 kilo methane for every 10 kilos of fuel, but the rest of them are compatible with the system,” he adds.

Since the machine takes in trash, Annadasan was quick to address the issue of smell. “During my two-and-half-years of research, I found the biggest problem was the maintenance of the set-up itself. Nobody has the time to be cleaning or checking. So with all these thoughts constantly running in my mind, I have designed this organic machine that has several mixers which will process the waste through a ‘water-jacket’ system that ensures that it doesn’t let out any kind of stench even after waste has accumulated in it for three to four days.” he says.

Aside from households, the converter can be used by hotels and canteens, which produce a lot of waste food per day.