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Biochar from Poop: CU-Boulder’s New Solar-Powered Waterless Toilet

We first-world humans aren’t particularly creative when it comes to dealing with our wastes: essentially, we want to get rid of it as quickly and cheaply as possible. So, we continue to rely on technology developed in the 19th-century for our unmentionables… even if it means literally flushing away enormous amounts of clean water, and creating vast infrastructure to do so.

The Gates Foundations’ “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge” encourages the development of a “next-generation” toilet that deals with waste in a sanitary fashion, but doesn’t create further waste in doing so. Developers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have developed a prototype for a toilet that not only uses no water, but also processes wastes into biochar with solar energy.

Thanks to sister site Ecopreneurist for catching this one. What do you think: a workable concept for the 2.5 billion people with access to sanitary waste disposal?

Solar Powered Toilet Makes Biochar from Human Waste (via Ecopreneurist)

A new type of solar-powered, waterless toilet that creates biochar from human waste could be a game-changing sanitation solution, providing a self-contained safe and sanitary toilet facility and producing a valuable agricultural resource. Those of us…

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