What we do

Hamza wants to leave his office job in Zanzibar and return to the soil. Night soil or humanure, that is. He wants to produce and sell pathogen-free organic compost while simultaneously ridding local waterways and lands of human feces. Open defecation, the practice of using streams, beaches, and pathways as a toilet is practiced widely across Africa.

Dr. Helen Fox, the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) Conservation Science Director says, “The nutrients in poop and pee are this huge valuable resource that’s literally getting flushed down the toilet and then going out and harming the environment. If we can get over the ‘ick’ factor and turn that human waste into energy or fertilizer, we can basically solve two problems at once.”

BGW proposed a Pay4Poop pilot, valuing the waste in a local youth-led campaign to solve these two problems at once. We will supply Hamza’s brigade with gloves, masks, pooper scoopers, and rolling containers. After school crew members will scoop poop and bring it to Hamza’s weighing station for their payments. Hamza will use the humanure as feedstock for his Waste2Energy business, and address a social ill at the same time.