crap to crop

The old way is back. More than 200 years ago in Edo (the famous Tokyo now), using of human waste as a fertilizer was a common/usual way to keep the city sanitary clean and safe. People in Edo were contracted with farmers in outskirt and exchanged their waste with fresh vegetables or money. Farmers pick up the human waste, bring them to their crops, use them as a fertilizer, grow nutritious vegetables, bring those vegetables back to the city to feed people in Edo - what a brilliant cycle. Unfortunately, the exponential population growth and the westernization of Japan have disabled the system to sustain. Now in 2010, a Swedish idea man, Anders Wilhelmson, brings the system back - not in Tokyo, but in countries and regions where sanitary, environmental and health conditions are severe. He and his colleagues' invention, called Peepoo, provides disposal mobile toilet to those people who don't have access to the infrastructure, and an organic nutritious fertilizer for their crops - only with a little cost.

It is only a toilet, who live and being spoiled in a house with endless amount of water, electricity and natural gas supply will say. But it is an essential infrastructure that keep us healthy - doctors and medicines can only cure the results of some diseases, but the living environment can eliminate the causes of various diseases.

(via NYT)