Phantom poop

It’s understandable no one will want to be associated with human waste because it’s disgusting. Some are frank enough though to admit it.

South Korean Cho Jae-weon doesn’t feel embarrassed tinkering with human feces. In fact, the bespectacled urban and environmental engineering professor at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) seeks a lot of it for his invention.

So do students of UNIST who like to use Cho’s BeeVi toilet in the campus. The BeeVi vacuum pumps feces to an underground tank where the waste is converted to methane

to power a gas stove, boiler and solid oxide fuel cell.

Its users also earn digital currency called Ggool for buying coffee, instant cup noodles, fruits or books sold in the campus. BeeVi users can save Ggools into a smartphone wallet by scanning a QR code in the toilet.

For its part, officials at Hyperion Water Reclamation, the largest and oldest sewage plant in Los Angeles, California, USA, were frank in saying they discharged more than 64 million liters of untreated sewage into Santa Monica Bay last 11 July. The discharge meant to prevent overloading of the facility temporarily closed nearby beaches as the high level of bacteria in the water poses health risks to swimmers.

Meanwhile, the government of China has denied claims by a US company that hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels anchored for months in the disputed Spratly Islands off the South China Sea are dumping tons of human waste straight into the water, damaging coral reefs.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Simularity, which analyzes satellite imagery, was trying to shame China with its wrongful accusations. The denial suggested that Simularity’s observations of high concentrations of harmful microscopic algae known as phytoplankton near where 236 Chinese fishing boats have been stationary since 17 June were merely illusions.

In a similar stance as Beijing, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has insisted that persistent fecal rumors about him 20 years ago were “utter rubbish.”

During an interview with a breakfast radio show on 15 July, Morrison vehemently denied the embarrassing incident involving him at a Sydney McDonald’s that still circulates on social media.

The rumor was he defecated in his pants at the suburban fast-food outlet after watching his favorite rugby club, the Cronulla Sharks, lose in a championship game in 1997.

If it cannot be proven that he soiled himself, then Morrison’s version of the phantom poop prevails.