Turning human waste into ‘brown gold’
JAYANT Bhagwan of South Africa’s Water Research Council said municipalities and entrepreneurs should start to view human faeces as “brown gold” which can serve as a revenue source, rather than a disposal problem.
Bhagwan, who spoke at the Breaking Barriers, Connecting Ideas, biennial conference of the Water Institute of Southern Africa, said turning human waste into products could create thousands of jobs.
He said a South African-designed system that transforms faeces into carbon is being used in Uganda to help create “EntrePOOnership”. In Isipingo near Durban, larvae of black soldier flies are being used to process faeces into commercial products similar to palm oil, while a fragrance company is considering using a charcoal by-product produced by the larvae in its products, Bhagwan added.
“Human waste is a major global opportunity; resource and service providers and business need to adopt a new paradigm. They need to think of being in business and creating revenue,” he said.
“Up to 13 litres of water is being used for flushing toilets and that’s to move around 150g to 200g of human waste. Then we use another 150 to 200 litres to convey it down the system. It’s time for cities to move on to non-water toilet systems.”
Bhagwan said water sanitation accounts for 60% of the cost of disposing of human waste. He added that an innovative solution to disposing waste is the Arumloo, which uses two litres per flush. The designer is trying to reduce this to just half a litre a flush.