Toilet system converts waste into fertile soil

Image: Rebecca Schedler, Design Academy Eindhoven

A design student and composting toilet company have collaborated to create a system that converts poo into an organic fertiliser.

Symbiopunk is a bioreactor and compost system that converts poo into a fertile material known as humus in a natural process, this is then used to feed mushrooms that purify it into soil. The system is the brainchild of graduate student Rebecca Schedler, from Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, and eco-friendly toilet designers Kildwick, based in Germany.

The creators say the project invites us to reconsider the taboo around the natural process of defecation by showing how the human waste becomes valuable, first as an essential food for the mushroom, which in turn produces a fertiliser than can be used for cultivation purposes.

According to Kildwick: “While every person in Europe consumes over 40 litres of clean drinking water a day to flush their toilet, in other countries of the world, clean drinking water is the most precious resource and not available. Absurd we think.”

The Symbiopunk is entirely mechanical, and uses no water. The process involves feeding waste into the device’s large copper drum. After a few days, it travels through tubing before being lifted into a tank, with the addition of mycelium, the base organism of a mushroom.

After about two weeks, mushrooms begin to sprout, purifying and breaking down the waste into humus, which can be used as garden or agricultural fertiliser.