“All aboard the poo bus!” is a phrase folks in the UK will actually be able to utter, thanks to a new mode of public transportation that’s powered entirely by human waste.
The so-called “Bio-Bus” seats up to 40 people and runs on the biomethane gas that’s produced from the treatment of sewage and food waste. On a full tank (ha!) — the equivalent of five people’s yearly, uh, discharge — the bus can travel as far as 186 miles.
Operated by a business called the Bath Bus Company (of course), it will be used to shuttle nearly 10,000 people each month to and from the Bristol Airport and the city of Bath. (I’m told an actual bath is not included.) The company is so confident in the contraption, that they’ve even wrapped it in a cartoon-ish design depicting, well…people taking a dump.
GENeco, who oversees the sewage treatment and biomethane gas supplies, also heralds the brown green ride. From BBC News:
“Gas-powered vehicles have an important role to play in improving air quality in UK cities but the Bio-Bus goes further than that and is actually powered by people living in the local area, including quite possibly those on the bus itself,”
As NPR notes, although this is the first bus of its kind in the UK, similar eco-friendly campaigns have been employed in Norway, Sweden, and Germany. For what it’s worth, I’d personally champion this sort of thing in New York City — the public transportation here already smells like crap.
(Via BBC News )