This Toilet Vaporizes Poop To Solve Sanitation Problems

The contraption resembles a traditional toilet that’s set atop a box with a side vent. Inside there’s a collection drum that’s lined with a pouch made from a proprietary moisture-wicking polymer. As excrement goes in, the polymer sucks the water out, dehydrating the sewage while releasing water vapor. The process isn’t entirely stink-free, but the rapid separation of solids and liquids tends to snuff out much of the odor, and there’s an additional filter inside the box. “This would be a way to have essentially like a self-flushing toilet,” says Yousef. The science has spawned its own catchy tagline. “We lovingly call this material ‘shrink wrap for crap,'” she says.

Poop, after all, is about 75% water (and pee even more so). By transforming normal bowel movements into tiny dried turds, the device enables multiple uses without immediate maintenance. It’s a potentially breakthrough way to provide better sanitation services to the roughly 2.6 billion people who don’t have access to toilets in the developing world.

Typically, rudimentary sanitation service in the developing world takes two forms. There are composting toilets, which require lots of space and are smelly, or personal bucket-based systems and larger pit latrines, the contents of which must be continuously collected and carted away by health workers.