If you’re someone who’s blessed with healthy and regular bowel movements, you’ll be happy to learn of the existence of BeeVi, a toilet bowl that converts your waste or good use. Finally, you can turn your turds into gold – sort of.
An urban and environmental engineering professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Cho Jae-won, was the creator of the BeeVi toilet bowl.
The name “BeeVi” comes from combining the word “bee” with “vi” from vision.
Professor Cho Jae-won
Image adapted from: SUBUSU NEWS
The toilet bowl was created because Professor Cho felt that faeces could be a good source of energy. Instead of letting it go to waste, it could be recycled and even power natural gas cars – 500g of poop can yield as much as 50 litres worth of methane gas. The methane gas produced is also used to power electrical appliances in the research centre.
The BeeVi toilet bowl works like this: a vacuum pump is used to send faeces down into an underground tank, and the bacteria in the tank breaks it down into methane. This way, the BeeVi toilet bowl saves water while producing energy at the same time, killing two birds with one stone.
How the BeeVi toilet works
Image credit: 대학지성
Apart from being converted into green energy, faeces can also be converted into money.
Professor Cho has come up with a digital currency called “Ggool”, which means honey in Korean, that BeeVi toilet bowl users can make use of.
Scan the QR code after you poop to earn Ggool
Image adapted from: SUBUSU NEWS
Upon completion of your business in the toilet, you can scan a QR code located next to the toilet bowl and earn 10 Ggool. The Ggool you’ve earned can be used to purchase items on the Ggool Market, which carries goods such as cup noodles, accessories, household items, and books.
Check out the Ggool Market to see what’s on sale.
BeeVi can only be found at UNIST for now, and there’s not much information on whether it’ll be adopted nationwide. That said, we hope that the BeeVi toilet bowl will become more popular and available worldwide soon.
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Cover image adapted from: Giorgio Trovato
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