--- title: How Human Feces Can Be Worth $9.5 Billion description: A decidedly renewable resource has some very profitable uses canonical: https://time.com/4098127/human-waste-energy-recycling/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-11-03T17:20:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:57:17.159Z article:section: Science og:title: How Poop Can Be Worth $9.5 Billion og:description: A decidedly renewable resource has some very profitable uses og:url: https://time.com/4098127/human-waste-energy-recycling/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbb526a8a8204ac4/69886f5ba988ca36f16b51bb/gettyimages-463709111.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3640 og:image:height: 2048 og:image:alt: Power plant: There's more going on here than you might think og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Poop Can Be Worth $9.5 Billion twitter:description: A decidedly renewable resource has some very profitable uses twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcbb526a8a8204ac4/69886f5ba988ca36f16b51bb/gettyimages-463709111.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Poop Can Be Worth $9.5 Billion > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=ac8d7522-c814-47fe-88f1-e9e7ffaba296&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: TIME Explains: Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Explains: Hurricane Sandy and Climate Change](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/X63BKwzy.m3u8) (2:29)  _Published 2012-11-01. TIME senior editor Bryan Walsh explains how climate change may have helped Hurricane Sandy become a superstorm_  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 3, 2015 5:20 PM UTC  Power plant: There's more going on here than you might think Power plant: There's more going on here than you might think Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Nov 3, 2015 5:20 PM UTC Let’s get two nasty numbers out of the way first (and don’t say you haven’t wondered about these at least once): The human race produces about 640 billion lbs. (290 billion kg) of feces per year, and about 3.5 billion gal. (1.98 billion liters) of urine. Divide by 7 billion if you’d like to get your own annual contribution to this heaping helping of yuck. From the moment human beings shambled out of the state of nature, the problem has always been just what to do about all that biological refuse. In the developed world, the answer is familiar: Flush it away as fast as possible and try not to think about it. In the developing world—especially in the parts where up to 2.4 billion people have no access to advanced sanitation and 1 billion have no facilities of any kind—things are a lot more difficult. Worse than difficult, the problem is dangerous, since human waste fouls water supplies, spreads infection and wrecks overall quality of life. Now, according to a smart study by a [United Nations think tank](http://inweh.unu.edu/waste-to-wealth/) on water, environment and health, there may be a simple—and profitable—solution: turn human waste from a disposal problem to an energy resource. Human feces ranges from 55% to 75% water. Much of the 25% to 45% that remains consists of gaseous methane—produced by bacterial breakdown—and a solid residue which, if dried and concentrated, has an energy content similar to that of coal. Unlike coal, of course, this is a fuel that hardly needs to be sought or mined, but like coal, it can have a lot of value. The U.N. report estimates that globally, human waste converted to fuel could have a value of about $9.5 billion. The amount of waste produced just by the 1 billion people with no sanitation facilities could be worth up to $376 million in methane production alone—enough to power 10 to 18 million households. The compressed, solid residue would produce the equivalent of up to 8.5 million tons of charcoal for industrial use. “When it comes to creating misery and poverty, human waste mismanagement has few rivals” said Zafar Adeel, the director of the U.N. group, in a statement accompanying the report. “If we can demonstrate a simple, cost-effective new approach…we can enhance development, protect the environment and help reduce sanitation problems causing one-tenth of all world illnesses.” The energy-generating part of this equation involves solid waste only, but all that urine humans produce every year has a role too. According to a Swedish study, every 1,000 liters (264 gal.) of urine contains 600 g (.66 lbs) apiece of phosphorous and potassium and 900 g (1 lb.) of sulphur. Combining both solid and liquid waste, a single human produces 4.5 kg (9.9 lbs) of nitrogen per year, according to the World Health Organization. All of this could be recycled as nutrients for crops, increasing yields and helping to bring down both poverty and hunger. The problem with any think tank study is how you implement it—and when the implementation is as complex, cumbersome and just plain messy as it would be in this case, that’s especially so. But a pilot project is being launched in Uganda, with the help of seed money from Canada (which is home to the think tank), the U.N. and the Ugandan Ministry of Water and Environment. The program will involve decentralized collection and processing in towns with poor or no sanitation, as well centralized collection in institutional settings—beginning with schools and prisons. A similar, if smaller, pilot study is being run in Kenya. Scaling up from two small trials to a global recycling system would, of course, be no easy matter. But it was not easy to link the world by air or Internet or electric grid either—and even now, the coverage is not uniform. Still, if there’s one truism about all organisms, it’s that they must both consume fuel and excrete waste. The problem will be here as long as we’re here—so we’ve got all the time we need to figure it out. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] So what does climate change have to do with Hurricane Sandy? Here's what you need to know. [ MUSIC ] A lot of people have been wondering what impact climate change may have had in terms of making Superstorm Sandy that much stronger. And the reality is it's, it's kind of hard to tell. And now we know that warmer ocean water tends to supercharge hurricanes like Sandy and the Atlantic Ocean. It's gotten two degrees Fahrenheit warmer over the last century. In this particular year, it's been, you've had a really warm ocean water. That may have actually helped it form, may have helped it become that much stronger. But Sandy's a little different. It's not just a hurricane. It's actually a, a frankenstorm that came up from the Caribbean. And then met this unusual blocking pattern of air coming from the Arctic. There are some scientists who believe that the melting of Arctic sea ice over the North Pole, which hit record levels this past summer, may actually have contributed to that blocking pattern. It may have actually pushed Sandy into the west, but we don't know that yet. But one thing we do know is that sea level rise has been increasing over the past century largely due to climate change. And when the seas are higher, that makes for the kind of storm surges we saw when, when Sandy struck places like New Jersey and especially New York City that much stronger. Now, we have to wonder what's going to happen in the future. Climate change is almost certainly going to get worse. You'll see warmer temperatures. You'll see higher sea level. That means we really have to watch out for storms like this in the future. It's not necessarily that they'll be that much stronger or more common, but the environment will be ready to, to make those storms all the worse. So, part of that, preparation's gonna have to be, involve actually, reducing carbon emissions, trying to mitigate climate change, trying to make it, less catastrophic. But we'll also have to think about, how do we live in cities that are in vulnerable areas? How do we live on the coast? After all, 3. 7 million Americans live within four feet of high tide. Those are the people who, on the east coast, were most threatened by Sandy. Now some cities have already taken steps to try to prepare for that, that warmer future. London actually is putting a, a sea barrier that, in the River Thames that will help reduce the risk of a similar kind of flood, similar kind of sea level rise that we've seen here with Sandy. Of course cities like Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and even New Orleans essentially had to build man made barriers for, to, to actually exist to begin with. But, you know, those kind of very expensive measures may become all the more necessary in the future as, as the world gets warmer, sea levels rise, those storms get stronger. 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