South Korean 'Green' Toilet Lets You Buy Books, Food, Coffee As Poops Are Converted to Digital Currency

What's the state of your bowel movements? Steady? Temperamental? Is it non-existent? Suppose you're a student at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea; your poop may make life a lot more economical in either case.

UNIST students benefit from free, sustainable electricity to power their building thanks to a sophisticated "green" toilet that converts human waste into biogas and manure. Every use of the toilet, dubbed 'BeeVi,' can also be converted into a digital currency called 'Ggool,' which translates to 'Honey.'

Poop-themed Unko Museum Yokohama Attracts Visitors In Japan

(Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Getty Images)
[REPRESENTATIONAL IMAGE ONLY] YOKOHAMA, JAPAN - MAY 24: A booth attendant sits on a toilet bowl as she briefs visitors at the Unko Museum Yokohama in May 24, 2019, in Yokohama, Japan. The temporary pop-up museum lets visitors learn about poop, take pictures with poop-themed attractions, and play with toys with the shape of poop. The museum will be open until July 15, 2019.

South Korean Toilet Powers a Building, Lets You Buy Food and Books After Pooping

BeeVi is a "super water-saving vacuum toilet" that sends excrement from the toilet into an underground tank and bioreactor using a vacuum and a tiny quantity of water.

The trash is then broken down into methane, which the university subsequently transforms into energy to operate their facility. For gas stoves, hot-water boilers, and a solid oxide fuel cell, this implies free electricity.

Students who contribute their excrement by using the green toilets can convert their waste into the university's own digital currency, Ggool, which is a play on words combining the words 'bee' and 'vision.'

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They can then use their Ggool to purchase anything on campus, such as a cup of coffee, substantial ramyeon, a nutritious banana, and even books, to mention a few, Business Insider wrote. Each time a pupil uses the BeeVi toilet, they will receive 10 Ggool every day.

"If we think out of the box, faeces has precious value to make energy and manure. I have put this value into ecological circulation," said Cho per Mercury News.

Few Grams of Feces Could Drive a Car For More Than a Kilometer

According to Cho, 500 grams of feces (the average person's output) may be transformed into 50 liters of methane gas. And 50 liters of methane can generate about 0.5 kilowatt hours (kWh) of power. Korean Biz Wire said this is sufficient to drive a car for 1.2 kilometers.

When an entire university's worth of students uses the restrooms, you can only imagine how much poop power is generated. For both the university and its students, it's a win-win situation.

"I had only ever thought that faeces are dirty, but now it is a treasure of great value to me," postgraduate student Heo Hui-jin told Reuters at the Ggool market. "I even talk about faeces during mealtimes to think about buying any book I want."