Israeli startup company converts organic waste to cooking gas

An Israeli startup company called Home Biogas is trying to solve the garbage problem with a special system that turns waste into cooking gas.

An average person creates two kg of waste per day. Multiplied by the 7.5 billion people in the world, an inconceivable amount of waste is produced each day.

According to Home Biogas founder and CEO Oshik Efrati, the system is a “home biogas system that receives the home organic waste – food fragments – and turns it into cooking gas and liquid fertilizer using a simple biological process. The size of the device is 1 m by 1.5 m, like a trash can outside your house.”

The device is only suitable for private homes at this stage, he said. Three kg of waste produces gas enough for three hours of cooking, making it very efficient. One family’s waste can produce enough energy to cook three meals.

The byproduct of the process is high-quality liquid fertilizer that contains minerals. It is suitable for the garden and makes crops grow almost twice as big. It is also odorless as the device is sealed.

The product being developed by the company is sent in a suitcase to customers, who assemble it by themselves, “just like IKEA.”

The company currently markets its product to 35 countries, with the price of the kit being US$1,000. Efrati says that the product is easy to operate.

“You don’t need an external power source or an electrical connection it all works mechanically and biologically,” he said. Last year, Home Biogas sold 100 units, and by the end of the year, it expects to sell 500 kits.

The company is looking at two principal markets for the device. The first is developing countries that lack energy, where people cook on wood or coal. People have to collect logs or buy coal which costs about a dollar a day. In addition, about 4.3 million women and children die each year from breathing in smoke from cooking. One hour of cooking over an open flame within a room or building is the same as smoking 400 cigarettes.

The second market is the super-developed areas, such as California, Australia, Hawaii, France, and Italy. People there are environmentally aware. They already separate and recycle waste. Many of them have composters (a device that performs a similar process, I.R.) in the garden. They can now have a more advanced and elegant alternative.”

In January, the company conducted a crowdfunding campaign, raising US$250,000. The company has raised US$3 million from private investors and the Ministry of the Economy and Industry Chief Scientist since it was founded in 2012, and is currently in the midst of another financing round, in which it is attempting to raise US$1.5 million.