Some researchers at the University of California have come up with ways to draw energy from the garbage you dispose into bio-gas that has the potential to generate electricity and can power homes and offices. They have devised a “digester” which works in two-stages (unlike most digesters which use just one stage).
Typically, all the food waste and other such forms of garbage is collected from homes and restaurants for instance and is fed into these digesters which allow this feed to under go decomposition which is naturally occurring. Different classes of bacteria have different effects on feed like this, but our group of bacteria actually decomposes the entire feedstock and produces methane (up to 60-80%) which can then be used as fuel to provide electricity.
Anaerobic digestion, the kind of digestion that happens within these digesters, isn’t the same as our digestion. We certainly don’t have bacteria within our body that can turn stuff into methane, do we? Animal waste and sewerage plants typically use anaerobic bacteria for treatments since these bacteria can process heat and produce methane, as was mentioned above.
