Pune, July 12 : City-based Priyadarshan Sahastrabuddhe, whose ambitious project ‘Vayu’ not only resolved the problem of wet waste in the city but also created employment opportunities among the youths by generating fuel from the waste, is now being shown in the ‘One for Change’ series on the National Geographic channel.
This is the second time that his project has received international attention.
Observing that the environmental conservation is a critical issue faced by the modern society that takes time to get resolved, Sahastrabuddhe, who holds an engineering degree and a Masters degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Mumbai, initiated the ‘Vayu’ project to create a new model of sustainable development.
‘Vaayu’ is a biogas technology, process that aims to empower common people to make their own energy from local biomass resources. It works to convert the food waste without crushing into burnable methane gas, which can be used as a cooking fuel.
By training waste pickers to operate and maintain the system, the team envisions transforming their role to energy suppliers, giving them an opportunity to earn ten times their livelihood with dignity along with solving the food waste problem at source.
As about 2.5 tons per day of food waste is managed at source, Vaayu saves around 3,000 cylinders worth of LPG per year and offsets 125 tons of fossil carbon dioxide emissions.

Recently, in recognition of his work, the National Geographic channel has aired a separate episode on Priyadarshan in its series ‘One for Change’, based on individuals who have made significant contributions to environmental conservation. In this series, 20 ‘Change Makers’ have been selected and their work has been presented to the world.
Last year, the project had won the Green Skills Innovation Challenge organised by US-based Ashoka Changemakers in association with HSBC, for which Priyadarshan received a grant of USD 20,000 for further research and expansion. Since then, his work has been consistently covered in various media forums.
Speaking on the achievement, Priyadarshan said, “The ‘Vaayu’ project is proving to be very useful in solving the problem of wet waste as well as changing the nature of employment of waste pickers. I am happy that this project is being recognised globally today. But I think that more citizens, societies or business establishments should become self-sufficient in energy production. It is necessary to implement this project on a large scale at the local level and for that the government should take the necessary steps.”