A TOILET that turns human waste into digital money is in use at a university in South Korea.
Students who use the toilet can earn 10 Ggool a day, which is enough to get them coffee, bananas or even books on the university campus.
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The eco-friendly toilet was designed by Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor from the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST).
His toilet is connected to a lab that takes poo and converts it to energy in the form of biogas.
The toilet is called a BeeVi.
It uses a pump to take human faeces to an underground tank.
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The vacuum pump is used to reduce water waste.
Once in the tank, micro-organisms break down the human waste and turn it into methane.
This methane is then used as fuel for things like boiling water and powering stoves in the building.
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According to Reuters, the professor said: “If we think out of the box, faeces has precious value to make energy and manure. I have put this value into ecological circulation.”
Postgraduate student Heo Hui-jin reportedly added: “I had only ever thought that faeces are dirty, but now it is a treasure of great value to me.
“I even talk about faeces during mealtimes to think about buying any book I want.”
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The average person is said to produce around 500g of faeces a day.
This can be turned into 50 litres of methane gas, according to Professor Jae-weon.
That amount of energy could reportedly drive a car 0.75 miles.
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People who use the digital coin creating toilet are paid in a made up currency called Ggool.
Ggool means honey in Korean.
Anyone using the eco-friendly toilet gets 10 Ggool a day.
That’s said to be enough for coffee, instant noodles or fruit.
Students can also save up their Ggool to buy books.
The average price of a latte in South Korea is around £3, according to Statista.
To spend the digital money, students just have to use a special QR code.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
