Hydrogen fuel cell cars that run on human waste? This you’ve got to see.

Electric cars are all the rage right now, and with good reason. While they’re not entirely emission-free (most are still powered by electricity from fossil fuels) they’re a long-overdue step in the right direction when it comes to personal transportation.

Still, there are those who think we can do better. As EcoSalon reported previously, hydrogen fuel cell cars could make EVs obsolete before they even have a chance to go mainstream. Hydrogen is the simplest and most abundant element in the universe. Instead of a big dirty engine, or heavy battery, hydrogen-powered vehicles have a fuel cell, which converts hydrogen to electricity, giving off only heat and water as byproducts.

Now, designers of fuel cell cars are looking to close the loop even tighter. California’s Orange County Sanitation District is testing out new technology that they claim will be able to power the forthcoming Hyundai Tucson–a fuel cell car–with nothing but the unmentionables human beings flush down the toilet every day. That’s right, we’re talking about poop.

The technology “can make hydrogen cheaply by processing solid waste and feeding it to microbes that turn it into methane. The fuel will be pumped to local stations, making it possible for Hyundai to put its car on the streets,” reports Fast Company. And if the initial stages of the project are successful, we could soon see poo-powered fuel cell cars popping up around the nation.

According to Hyundai, more than 90,000 people have expressed interest in the fuel cell cars, but for now, the poop-powered vehicles will only be available in a limited area around Los Angeles.

“We want to make sure with this car that customers have pretty easy access to hydrogen,”Jim Trainor, a spokesperson for Hyundai, told Fast Company. “If there were more hydrogen stations, we could have more customers. We’ll plan more when the infrastructure’s in place.”

For those lucky enough to live within driving distance of said infrastructure, buying or leasing one of Hyundai’s fuel cell cars will come with an extra perk: free poop. Well, you know, fuel made from poop.

“We want them to have a good experience. We don’t want them waiting for fuel, we don’t want them driving all over for fuel,” Trainor told Fast Company. “We’ll handle paying for the fuel, because there are also issues with what it costs–a lot of the hydrogen fuel cell stations right now just aren’t capable of charging what you’d pay for gas.”

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Image via Hyundai

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When someone’s motto is “fart with confidence”, you know you’re in good company. The latest and greatest in the world of flatulence and incontinence are Shreddies.

The UK-based Shreddies produces an assortment of underwear that are equipped with a carbon-filtering technology that dissipates odor on contact. This is no product to cast off as a gag gift or laughable concept – according to testimonials, Shreddies work!

There is so much taboo surrounding flatulence and incontinence that it’s hard for the everyday average person below a certain age to accept the need for help. Suffering from excessive gas due to indigestion or a high-fiber diet knows no age, and it is a lot more common than you might think. Now, a company has created an approachable, light-weight, stylish product that allows you to comfortably avoid causing an aromatic stir among those around you.

According to the Shreddies site, “odour vapours become trapped and neutralised by the cloth, which is then reactivated by simply washing the garment.” This means you can fart all you want without the social embarrassment. The company also produces incontinence underwear that are lightweight, but allow for your bottom to stay dry and breathe.

I find Shreddies to be a funny (but actually serious) gift to family members, significant others, and friends. They also look just like regular undergarments – nothing like a diaper. Make sure to order you Shreddies at least a month ahead of time due to the large back order the company is currently experience.

Photo Credit: Shreddies

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Poop. It’s everyone’s favorite subject to avoid, except for these four companies that actually turn it into amazing products.

Most people are familiar with the practice of recycling animal excrement into manure. But some not-so-squeamish souls have gone a step further, devising sustainable solutions to prevent the putrid piles from going to waste.

1. Civet coffee (kopi luwak): Can you imagine paying hundreds of dollars for coffee made from poop? Civet coffee is a rarefied brew made from the droppings of a nocturnal, catlike animal called the Asian palm civet. The lithe, long-tailed creature eats a diet of coffee berries, digesting the fruit’s fleshy pulp and passing the tough pit through its gastrointestinal tract whole (although enzymes break down the bean’s proteins). After the civet defecates the undigested coffee beans, they are then harvested, husked, washed, and roasted.

Opinions of the civet coffee’s flavor vary, described by some as “earthy” and “smooth” and others as “unremarkable” and “thin.” Many would agree, though, that the coffee isn’t bitter — which makes sense, since the civet’s digestive enzymes degrade the proteins that help give coffee its bitterness.

Harvesting the excreted coffee began in Indonesia, back when the archipelago was still a Dutch colony. Though a luxury today, Indonesian plantation workers had no choice but to resort to the civet castoffs, since Dutch owners prohibited them from picking the coffee beans for their own use.

If you decide to splurge on a bag, do some research first, and make sure that the coffee beans were collected from wild, not farmed, civets. Some civet farms confine the animals to cramped cages, where their job is to feed on and excrete coffee berries. Bantai Civet Coffee sells coffee that members of the Asipulo tribes in the northern Philippines gather only from wild civets. An added plus: the company buys the beans directly from tribe members, many of whom live in poverty, ensuring them a substantial source of income.

2. Poopoo Paper: Instead of cutting down trees, Poopoo Paper harvests fiber from the pounds of vegetation already eaten by elephants, horses, cows, pandas, and other hefty herbivores for its line of paper products. These animals’ digestive systems have trouble breaking down fiber, meaning that the hair-like bristles remain largely intact once defecated.

Collected mainly from elephant conservation parks in Thailand, the droppings are rinsed and boiled to disinfect the fiber and kill the stench. The resulting pulp is then mixed with additional fibers from cornhusks, pineapple plants, and other natural sources, which help hold the paper together. The pulp then gets spread out on mesh-bottomed trays and baked under the sun, drying into sheets of paper that are then crafted into stationery, journals, bookmarks, picture frames, greeting cards, Christmas ornaments, and paper flowers.

Company founder Michael Flancman came up with the idea for Poopoo Paper in 2002 when he heard about a Thai villager who made paper from elephant dung. He asked for samples and sold them to the Toronto Zoo. At the time, though, most North American retailers weren’t keen on the idea, but in 2005, eco-conscious retailers were more open to treeless alternatives. Flancman and his wife, who is from Thailand, relied on friends and friends of friends to set up manufacturing operations in the Southeast Asian country. Elephants are Poopoo Paper’s main suppliers, but the purveyor has expanded to include products from a variety of herbivores.

Besides offering an alternative paper source, Poopoo Paper donates some of its profits to support elephant conservation efforts.  The company also maintains a flex-work cottage-based manufacturing production framework in Thailand, which allows many of the crafts people to work at home, attend to seasonal harvesting commitments and fulfill family household responsibilities.

3. Coprolite may sound like a precious gemstone. In fact, the fancy name refers to fossilized animal feces. Over time, mineral deposits such as silicate and calcium phosphate replace much of the excrement’s original organic composition, resulting in an odorless, hardened nugget that’s indistinguishable from a rock or pebble, except to the trained eye of a paleontologist or paleoscatologist (a scientist who studies prehistoric poop).

The preserved heaps come from a variety of creatures, each of whose deposits have a characteristic shape. Sharks and lungfish, for example, produce spiral-shaped feces. Droppings from larger animals tend not to hold their shape, probably because they have a higher chance of splatting on the ground when they fall.

Coprolites from carnivores are more common, most likely due to the calcium carbonate in the bones and teeth of their prey, which help mineralize dung. On the other hand, herbivore droppings rely on outside sources of phosphate, such as marine sediments.  But for most species, the preservation process is short, geologically speaking, taking only a few hundred years. Mineralization can transform a dun-colored heap into a brilliant bauble. Dying to don some droppings? Maine-based Mostly Moose and More sells moose coprolite earrings, and Idaho’s Teton Valley Stones carries dinosaur (yes, dinosaur!) coprolite pendants. 

4. Loowatt This extreme eco-commode transforms human waste into precious energy. A tube of biodegradable polymer film acts as the toilet bowl. Rather than flushing with water, operating a handle on the toilet pulls the film through a sealing mechanism that separates the urine from the feces, storing them in a tightly sealed parcel that locks in odor. The user periodically deposits the waste into an anaerobic digester, which provides an oxygen-free environment where microorganisms consume the organic matter, releasing natural gas — used for cooking, electricity and other applications — as well as fertilizer.

Founder Virginia Gardener created the Loowatt as a low-cost sanitation solution for 40 percent of the world’s population, which lacks toilets. Installing sewage systems is impossible in many developing countries, resulting in improper waste disposal that can spread deadly waterborne illnesses. A pilot system for the LooWatt, funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, began in Madagascar last year. 

–Melissa Pandika

This post originally appeared in Sierra magazine.

Image: thejbird

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