...AND CHEAPER...:

As a graduate student at Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Schedler built the Symbiopunk, a bioreactor that transforms feces into humus--the fertile, black substance in soil (not the chickpea dip). The work was done in collaboration with the composting toilet company Kildwick.

The Symbiopunk is entirely mechanical, requiring no electricity to operate. You feed solid waste into the Symbiopunk's large copper drum. (It flips upside down, and spins left to right, to make this job easy.) The waste sits in this copper for two to three days, because over this time feces will actually increase in temperature due to its active microbes. The copper offers a literal cooling-off period, and copper itself is antimicrobial, which helps sterilize the waste.

After a few days, the waste makes its way through the black tube you see at the bottom of the contraption. This is a screw feeder. By twisting the white handle, the feeder lifts the waste into the big black tank while also incorporating mycelium (the base organism of a mushroom) into the mix.

Then, after a couple of weeks, mushrooms sprout, purifying and breaking down the waste into humus. Human waste becomes organic fertilizer, which you can then incorporate into a garden or farm.

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