Marilyn Thipthorpe
Public toilets are generally pretty crappy, but researchers have built one at a university in South Korea that might make it fun to drop in, drop trou’ and drop anchor. Not only does it look like a nice environment to induce the deuce, but it turns your browns into green energy solutions, and eventually, similar to the OpenBiome project, you might even be paid to poop.
The UNIST toilet uses an anaerobic systemA grinder inside the toilet dehydrates and breaks the waste down into a dry, odorless powder, which is then transferred to a digestion tank that is home to thousands of different microbes. As they go to work, the compost biodegrades, generating carbon dioxide and methane, which the scientists harvest.
The carbon dioxide is used to culture green algae, a common source of biofuel, while the methane can be stored for use as a heating fuel.
We don’t have to waste our waste.
This project, like many others, aims to reduce the impact we have on the environment, in terms of both water and energy use.