Poop-Eating Worms Power the Eco-Toilets of the Future

[hunter]

We’ve got seven billion people on this planet, and a whole lot more coming. While we worry about where all those people are going to live, and what they’re going to eat and drink, it’s not often that we think about where they’re going to poop.

Last year when I spoke to Jack Sim, head of the World Toilet Organization, he explained the two major issues that we’re already facing with sanitation. First is the simple lack of access that billions of people still don’t have. And for those that do, out current sanitation system wastes an enormous amount of water and, as Sim noted, also wastes a huge amount of important nutrients, like phosphorous, that gets washed away with our brown gold.

The poop industry is ripe for disruption, and a French company is offering one solution: Use turd-eating worms to compost waste right at the source.

http://motherboard.vice.com/2012/10/5/poop-eating-worms-power-the-eco-toilets-of-the-future--2

I've seen much simpler toilets, but this headline was a winner!

[Turbineguy]

1. Those must be

the millions of jobs Romney keeps talking about.

[msongs]

2. so what does one do with the excess worms that grow on this feast? nt

[kestrel91316]

5. They could probably be roasted and fed to chickens safely.

[NickB79]

9. Then we harvest....the Spice.

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Y7G&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&biw=1366&bih=636&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=pXGN8uoHLurtbM:&imgrefurl=http://sarcasmancy.blogspot.com/2009/09/lost-among-dunes.html&docid=KEEXQGVvKH5zEM&imgurl=&w=400&h=320&ei=OY1wUO_lNsi-0QHp8oDABQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=126&vpy=147&dur=2006&hovh=201&hovw=251&tx=168&ty=131&sig=115501605468343576777&page=1&tbnh=137&tbnw=182&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i 3

[Politicalboi]

3. Why just let the worms eat shit

http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/2011/06/friday-free-for-all-japanese-scientists-invent-poop-steaks

YUM!

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. More shovel-ready for jobs for Romney supporters

[abumbyanyothername]

6. Scroll down -- not just for 3rd world countries by the way

http://humanurehandbook.com/contents.html

Asian countries have maintained the fertility of their soils for millennia using "night soil" (human excreta and urine spread on agricultural fields). There are some health issues, but nothing that a little sensible composting cannot deal with.

It's a fascinating book. I am up to the Chapter titled The Tao of Humanure.

[OnlinePoker]

7. Only problem is the chemicals we also excrete.

When I lived in Germany in the early 90's, honeywagons regularily spread matter on the fields of the Rhine. Just before I left, there were reports of things like birth control and heart medications leaching into the ground water. I don't know if this is still happening there, but it is one pause for concern in our highly medicated western society.

[abumbyanyothername]

8. In my gardening website

A discussion arose about the utility of direct urine application to the garden.

Someone said that her father always urinated in the garden, except when he took his beta blocker medicine. I asked her to consider the insanity of that -- it's curative to ingest, but toxic when eliminated? How can that be? :-p