While they are still not always the most pleasant of places, the good old long-drop dunny has come a long way since its ‘deep-hole-in-the-ground-and-not-much-more’ beginnings.
Scientists have thrown a lot of time and energy into creating eco-friendly, odourless, waterless toilets, but the whole super-loo concept could be in the verge of taking another giant leap forward. Rather than viewing your ‘number twos’ as a difficult- to-deal with waste product, the boffins at a South Korean university have approached the issue with exactly the opposite mindset.
They have created a prototype toilet which sees human waste as a valuable resource which can be turned into biofuel, or a green energy solution … and there is even talk that one day, rather than
Waste matter is turned into biofuel
having to spend a penny, people may actually be paid to answer the call of nature. And perhaps best of all, for grey nomads who live in fear of a trip to the cobweb-filled, ‘where-are-the-snakes-hiding’ horror toilets of folklore, the new super-loo offers a pretty decent environment in which to do what comes naturally.
Is it too much to dream of a Big Lap where grey nomads get paid to use a luxury toilet in the bush and then can use the fuel their waste matter creates to powers their lighting or their car? Probably … but it’s a nice idea, isn’t it? The laboratory/lavatory has been built at the Ulsan National Institute of Science
Farewell old friend?
and Technology (UNIST) in Ulsan, South Korea and it uses an anaerobic system. A grinder device in the loo dehydrates and breaks the waste down into a dry, odourless powder, which is then transferred to a digestion tank. Inside the tank are thousands of different microbes which help biodegrade the compost, generating carbon dioxide and methane, which is then harvested by the scientists.
The carbon dioxide is apparently then used to culture green algae, which is a common source of biofuel, while the methane can be stored for use as a heating fuel. “Our ultimate goal is not only for the new toilet system to save water and operational costs for wastewater treatment plants, but for us to establish an ecosystem that supports technology innovation and drives economic diversification where human waste literally has a financial value,” says Professor Jaeweon Cho, the Director of the Science Walden Pavilion project.
The South Korean scientists are now developing a smartphone app that can tell people exactly what financial value their waste has.
