By DPA
Tokyo : Tired of smelly public toilets? Check out a prototype Japanese bio-toilet that emits no foul smell and helps the environment at the same time.
A bio-toilet developed by a Japanese non-profit organisation is designed to activate microorganisms living in cider chips and decompose excrement.
In the decomposition process, only nitrogen gas and water are left. The water can be reused for toilet flushing.
The group began setting up bio-toilets for nature conservation at Japan’s highest Mount Fuji, where excrement kept during the summer hiking season had been dumped into the soil after the trail closed for winter.
The human excrement, which created a trace called “the white river”, had been a source of contamination on the sacred mountain.
But all 42 public toilets have now been replaced with the bio-toilets and other eco-friendly public restrooms, according to Jiji Press.
Last year, the group set up the prototype restrooms in the Mount Rainier national park in the US and plans are in the works to install them in Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Kanghwado island in South Korea this year.