The United Nations released a report Tuesday outlining how human waste could power hundreds of millions of homes, ultimately contributing to the generation of sustainable energy while improving health and financing development particularly in developing countries.
The report was published by the U.N. University's Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) headquartered in Canada, and it estimates an astounding $9.5 billion worth of natural gas from aggregate human waste worldwide. The process involves biogas technology, which generates fuel using bacteria that breaks down human waste. The electricity produced by this amount of gas can power 138 million households, which is equivalent to the number of homes in Indonesia, Brazil and Ethiopia combined, according to Global News.
"When it comes to creating misery and poverty, human waste mismanagement has few rivals," said Zafar Adeel, director at UNU-INWEH, The Irish Times reported. "If we can demonstrate a simple, cost-effective new approach in low-resource settings ... we can advance development, protect the environment and help reduce sanitation problems."
Working examples of real-world application of biogas technology include a bus in the U.K. powered by fuel derived from cow manure, as HNGN previously reported.
Sanitation is currently a huge health and environmental problem around the world. The number of people, for example, who defecate in the open could reach as much as one billion, the U.N. said, according to The News. If the wastes are collected from this number, it could already generate biogas that can power up to 18 million households. In addition, collecting those wastes could drastically eradicate incidences of cholera, diarrhea, hepatitis A and typhoid, among other illnesses.
