National Geographic: Is "Peecycling" the Next Wave in Sustainable Living?

“Since 2006, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and grantee Sasha Kramer, a soil scientist, has been installing dry composting toilets that convert human waste into useful fertilizer in Haiti. The nonprofit group she cofounded, Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL), hopes to address the country’s poor sanitation while creating employment and providing fertilizer.

Kramer’s simple toilets separate urine and feces, which are covered with dry material to reduce odors. The material is regularly collected and then composted in an eight-month process that kills pathogens (see video).

…When it comes to human waste, ‘all our lives we go to the bathroom and flush these things down, make these thing disappear as much as we can,’ Noe-Hays says. ‘To realize that those things are actually good things, when used correctly, is really empowering.’

– Samantha Larson, in the National Geographic, February 2, 2014. Read the full article here.