The Power of Poop: A 'Toilet' With the Ability to Turn Your "Poop-To-Currency"

Believe it or not, an 'out-of-the-box' thinker and researcher at a South Korean university have come up with a brilliant idea of converting human excreta into spendable digital currency.

Cho Jae-weon, or the man behind the "POOP to RICHES" story is actually an urban and environmental engineering professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST).

He has designed an eco-friendly toilet that has the ability to convert human feces into useable energy. What's more interesting is that, as a bonus incentive, each use of this one-of-a-kind toilet happily rewards the poopers with a small amount of digital currency which is actually useable within the university campus that can be used to purchase a cup of coffee or noodles.

For those who thought pooping could provide respite and satisfaction that's only limited to bowel habits, well its time they can also check out their 'happy wallets'.

Explaining his concept behind his weird yet genius invention Cho said, "If we think out of the box, feces have precious value to make energy and manure. I have put this value into ecological circulation."

He calls his invention The BeeVi toilet - a combination of the words bee and vision. It actually works on the principle of suction as it uses a vacuum pump to send feces into an underground tank which reduces water use. Inside this tank, the microbes work towards breaking down the human waste into methane, which is an effective source of energy. This energy also powers the building, a gas stove, hot-water boiler and solid oxide fuel cell.

According to Cho, the toilet has the ability to convert approximately around a pound of solid human waste into a whopping 50 liters of methane gas. It can generate half a kilowatt hour of electricity, enough to drive an electric car for three quarters of a mile.

Cho has also devised a virtual currency called Ggool, which literally translates into honey in Korean, while each time you use the loo you earns 10 Ggool a day, which is currently usable within the campus stores.

Heo Hui-jin, who is postgraduate student at the university and has practically both earned and spent Ggool within the university campus now has a very different approach towards pooping. She laughingly shares, "I had only ever thought that feces are dirty, but now it is a treasure of great value to me. It doesn't disgust me anymore, not even during meal time."

So if you are still thinking feces a taboo subject to talk about, you could be missing out on a lot of cash….well that's disgusting though!