A Regenerative Future for Poop

As the world’s population swells closer to 9.9? billion by 2050, a mounting problem is the 290 billion kgs of poop we produce annually.?

500+ million people worldwide still have no choice but open defecation, and basic sanitation is the near-term goal. For those with sophisticated systems, most don’t know where their abandoned resource goes when they flush. In reality, old technologies, lack of funds and mixed waste streams mean that toxins end up in the environment and our bodies.?

Poop is valuable,? both as inexpensive fertilizer and also for the extraction of materials like non-renewable phosphate and even gold. However, rising toxicity levels are putting incineration back on the agenda, which would lead to an increase in carbon emissions.

Improving our circular system requires systems thinking and collective leadership. Like Rumi’s poem, “The Elephant in the Dark”, where one person touches the trunk and another a tusk, experts usually see one element and not the entire beast. Technical solutions and fines are effective, but changing mindsets drives the biggest impact (read about Leverage Points) - what if people just didn’t pollute? The stark reality is, we treat water like shit - even though 60% of our bodies are made of it.

At BITC, we are convening water companies, upstream polluters and policy makers in an exciting value chain sprint to preserve and improve the circularity of biowaste for a regenerative future and cleaner water.