Upset with LPG shortage? This engineer from Pune is making his own cooking gas at home with kitchen waste

In most Indian homes, the kitchen dustbin quietly fills up each day with vegetable peels, leftover rice, fruit skins and spoiled food. Once thrown away, the waste vanishes from sight, usually ending up in landfills where it slowly rots and releases harmful gases into the air.

At a time when fuel supply disruptions and rising LPG dependence have become pressing concerns for kitchens across the country, the search for alternative sources of energy feels increasingly urgent. For Pune-based engineer Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe, that urgency began with a simple observation at home and a question that refused to leave him: what if everyday kitchen waste could become cooking fuel? Scroll down to read more...

A question hidden in the kitchen

The Pune-based engineer and alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay decided to search for an answer inside his own home. A few years ago, while working at his family’s business, he noticed how much leftover food was being discarded after meals. The sight stayed with him. At first, he experimented with composting to reduce the waste, but the solution felt incomplete. The organic waste still held untapped potential.

Discovering fuel in food scraps

As he researched further, he began exploring the science of biofuels. What he discovered was both simple and powerful: the same organic waste produced in kitchens could be broken down by bacteria to produce methane gas, a clean fuel that can be used for cooking. Instead of sending waste to overflowing landfills, households could turn it into energy.

In 2017, that idea took shape as Vaayu, a compact domestic biogas plant designed for ordinary homes.

The system converts organic kitchen waste into methane through a natural process known as anaerobic digestion. Over time, many households began to realise that the gas produced could be piped directly to a stove, while the leftover slurry could serve as nutrient-rich manure for plants.

A home experiment that worked

For Sahasrabuddhe, the experiment began at home. Using food scraps collected daily, his system started producing around 800 litres of biogas a day, enough to meet a large part of his household’s cooking needs.

The result was striking: the family reduced its reliance on LPG cylinders significantly, saving several cylinders every year. But the technology was only one part of the challenge. The bigger hurdle was changing habits.

Convincing a neighbourhood

In the early days, Sahasrabuddhe personally visited neighbours in his apartment building to explain the importance of separating organic waste from other garbage. Every morning, he would go door to door reminding residents to segregate their waste.

On some days, he even collected organic waste himself from nearby garbage bins just to keep the system running.Slowly, curiosity replaced hesitation. When neighbours saw how kitchen scraps could be transformed into usable cooking gas, they began participating. Today, his local community contributes nearly 8–10 kilograms of organic waste every day to the system.

From experiment to movement

What began as a personal experiment has since grown into a small but meaningful movement.

Through his startup, Sahasrabuddhe has installed more than a hundred Vaayu units in cities including Pune, Nashik, Hyderabad and Aurangabad. Together, these installations process nearly two tonnes of food waste daily and reduce the consumption of hundreds of LPG cylinders each year.Yet Sahasrabuddhe’s vision extends beyond technology. He has also organised an informal community called Vaayu Mitra, bringing together people interested in sustainable living and waste management.

The group encourages households to adopt biogas solutions and trains waste collectors to operate the systems, helping transform them into local energy suppliers. For him, the message is simple but powerful. Organic waste is not merely garbage waiting to be discarded; it is a resource waiting to be recognised.

Rethinking what we call waste

In a country where landfills continue to grow and air pollution remains a pressing concern, small household solutions may not solve the crisis entirely.

But they can begin to change the way people think about waste.For Sahasrabuddhe, that shift in thinking is the real transformation. Each kitchen scrap that turns into fuel is a reminder that environmental change does not always begin with massive policies or technologies. Sometimes, it starts quietly in a home kitchen, with one person asking a simple question about what we choose to throw away.