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by Kevin Helms
9 hours ago
An eco-friendly toilet that pays people in digital currency for using it has been installed at a university in South Korea. The toilet is connected to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas, which is used as a source of energy at the university.
There is now a toilet that pays you in digital currency for using it. It was designed by a South Korean professor of environmental engineering at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and is already in use, Reuters reported Friday. The institute is one of the four public universities in South Korea dedicated to research in science and technology.
The toilet is called Beevi, a portmanteau of the words bee and vision. It is connected to a laboratory that uses excrement to produce biogas and manure.
When in use, a vacuum pump sends feces into an underground tank, reducing water use, and the excrement is broken down to methane by microorganisms. This turns into a source of energy, which is being used in a building at the university to power “a gas stove, hot-water boiler and solid oxide fuel cell,” the publication conveyed.
Professor Cho Jae-weon, who designed the toilet, was quoted as saying:
If we think out of the box, feces has precious value to make energy and manure. I have put this value into ecological circulation.
He explained that an average person defecates about 500 grams a day, which can be converted to 50 liters of methane gas. He noted that this gas can generate 0.5kWh of electricity or be used to drive a car for about 0.75 miles.
Users of the Beevi toilet get paid in a digital currency called Ggool, which means honey in Korean. Currently, each person using the toilet earns 10 Ggool a day.
The digital coins can then be used to purchase anything at a shop on campus, such as freshly brewed coffee, instant cup noodles, fruits, and books. Students scan a QR code to pay with the digital currency.
Heo Hui-jin, a postgraduate student at the university, was quoted as saying:
I had only ever thought that feces are dirty, but now it is a treasure of great value to me. I even talk about feces during mealtimes to think about buying any book I want.
The news of this toilet has drawn some attention on social media, with some calling it a “genius” creation. Many in the crypto community, however, made fun of the concept, calling the digital currency literally “the king of shitcoins.”
