Pooping Pays at Oberlin

[richs73cas]

<p>You can’t make this stuff up.
<a href=“http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/4/8/news/article5.html[/url]”>http://www.oberlin.edu/stupub/ocreview/2005/4/8/news/article5.html&lt;/a&gt;

It’s Sunday evening and you realize you have no clean underwear or socks, and after a desperate search for quarters, borrowing some from neighbors and going through old jackets and purses, you are still short of two precious coins worth 25 cents each. There is a simple solution for you: make a “donation” to the Oberlin Living Machine and the “Quarter Poops” campaign and put an end to your worries.

Note the date of the article is April 8th not April 1st.</p>

[546mp]

<p>Choice quotes:</p>

<p>

“The LM was designed to handle 2,400 gallons of wastewater daily,” Platt said, “but right now it is only processing 200-300 gallons, or less than 10 percent of its capacity.”</p>

<p>When there is not enough “material” going through the LM, it is much more difficult to work with . . .</p>

<p>“It’s not that the LM is sick and dying, like people thought last year,” Dyankov said. “It is designed to have 10 times more sewage, so it’s more like it’s hungry.”

</p>

<p>

“A lot of people on campus are very concerned about where their food comes from but not many people think about where their waste goes,” Cohn said.</p>

<p>She believes that through raising awareness about the LM and its function, a connection between food, people and waste can be established.Or, as Platt put it, “Think globally, poop locally.”

</p>

[mchs]

<p>To put this in context: The campaign if part of a very sophisticated program in sustainable living at the school’s environmental program, which has been recognized by the federal EPA. It’s not some kind of stupid frat boy prank.</p>