The company, Ecosphere Technologies, has developed an outhouse that, rather than relying on chemicals like a port-a-john, relies on about a pound of red wiggler worms that are native to Europe. A new installation in Quebec uses imported worms, placed inside of a mixture of dung and straw underneath to toilet, to devour feces delivered to them by a conveyor belt system. (When someone uses the toilet, pee filters through sand to wash away, while a pedal allows the user to transport their poo to the worm space.) (via Poop-Eating Worms Power the Eco-Toilets of the Future | Motherboard)
- 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.
- “A worm eats almost its own weight in food each day,” worm farmer Helene Beaumont told the AFP during a demo at a golf course “And the more poop there is to eat, the more they reproduce.”
I want that.. :)
