While staying at Banana Farm Eco Hostel please take time to learn or see our biogas system. Biogas is a clean and renewable fuel that you can make yourself. You will be able to cook all of your normal meals with it, light your house or even heat your water for shower. Biogas is a type of bio-fuel that is naturally produced from the decomposition of organic waste.
When organic matter, such as food scraps and animal waste, break down in an anaerobic environment (an environment absent of oxygen) they release a blend of gases, primarily methane and carbon dioxide.
Because this decomposition happens in an anaerobic environment, the process of producing biogas is also known as anaerobic digestion.
We make biogas here at my hostel and we use it for cooking by refilling the gas cylinder to use in our kitchen. We also provide gas to the villagers for free whenever they run out of cooking gas in their houses but they must have special tanks for refilling.
How Is Biogas Made?
Our Biogas is made in a biogas digester. We call it a digester because it is a large tank filled with bacteria that eats (or digests) organic waste and gives a flammable gas, called biogas. The bacteria in the biogas digester need to be cared for like you would care for an animal. If the bacteria have too much or too little food they get sick. You must feed the bacteria every day with a mixture of food waste and water. In addition to biogas, the systems make waste that is rich in nutrients.
Biogas systems make use of a relatively simple, well-known, and mature technology. The main part of a biogas system is a large tank, or digester. Inside this tank, bacteria convert organic waste into methane gas through the process of anaerobic digestion.
Each day, Ali who takes care of the cows feeds the digester with manure and urine from our cows. The methane gas produced inside biogas system is used in our eco hostel for cooking and soon we will start using it for lights and water heating for shower.
Waste that has been fully digested exits the biogas system in the form of organic fertilizer. We use this waste to grow our bananas, vegetables and most of the fruits you have for breakfast/lunch/dinner at our eco hostel. It’s an eco friendly organic fertilizer.