Poop and pee are both waste products that hardly anybody in the past could think of anything good about. However, with the time, the perception has also changed. Many creative thinkers and designers today have managed to put both the waste products to good use. Here are the best of projects that put pee and poop to eco-friendly use:
LooWatt
Owing to poor or improper sewage disposal systems, there are no toilets in many underdeveloped countries. It is responsible for the spread of bacteria and numerous water and air borne diseases. So overall, no toilet means a threat to both people and the environment.
Designer Virginia Gardiner trying to solve this problem came up with LooWatt, an eco-commode made using poop. It is 90% horse dung and a biodegradable lining that makes this eco-friendly toilet comfortable and a sanitary place to sit on. With the aid of the biodigester, this toilet turns waste into energy, thus, serving two purposes altogether, which is energy supply and sanitation.
Generator powered by urine
Image Source : News2.OnlineNigeria.Com
Who could have thought of coming up with a generator that uses urine as a power source, but Duro-Aina Adebola, Faleke Oluwatoyin, Akindele Abiola and Bello Eniola did. Nigerian girls belonging to the age group of 14-15, with a penchant for creating an alternative energy solution that could be of immense help for their community.
A human being produces about 2 liters of urine a day, which is quite enough for producing electricity. The generator uses electrolysis procedure to extract hydrogen from urine and then uses it as a fuel for producing six hours of electricity.
Human urine as a fertilizer
Sridevi Govindraj, while studying at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore came up with an eco-friendly solution. With the completion of her doctoral thesis in ecological sanitation, she found that urine could save fertilizer expenses up to $26.7 million.
Even if 40 percent of Indians store their urine and use it on their crops in place of fertilizers, they will reap the same benefits of those expensive chemical fertilizers. This research is backed by the fact that human urine is rich in nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and some other elements that crops love.
Park Spark
There is this park near MIT in Cambridge that has become a hot spot for dog owners. The park witnesses quite a good traffic everyday because pet owners take their dogs there to stroll. The park in a way welcomes dog owners to come and have a good time with their dogs and before they leave, they can donate their dog’s poop for a noble cause.
There are special digesters installed in the park, and dog owners are supposed to put the poop in them, rather than in any trash can. Digesters then convert the natural methane released by poop into energy, which further powers streetlights of the park at night. Park Spark is doing an incredible job to save the environment from the greenhouse gas emission and various diseases that improper disposal of poop accounts for.
Shit burger
Image Source : TheCoolGadgets.Com
Mitsuyuki Ikeda is a scientist who has managed to come up with a very strange invention, which has been nicknamed as the “poop burger.” Sewage mud (human poop) is a quite rich in proteins and lipids. He extracted these elements from sewage mud, mixed them into meat, and mixed soya and steak sauce to it. He wanted to reduce the carbon emissions of the meatpacking industry, so he came up with this faux meat.
There is no dearth of minds constantly thinking about coming up with solutions that can make this planet a better place. Such people have come up with solutions that put poop and pee to a better use.