Spotlight: Extreme Recycling Uses Poo to Make Food

Together with other environmentally-conscious researchers, specialist Howard Bell from the UK Food and Environment Research Agency in York, is now busy developing a way of turning waste into food.

The idea is quite simple, and there are many who might agree that it stands to be quite successful: maggots are made to grow on top of large piles of manure and other similar organic waste.

Once they grow big and plump enough, they are collected, killed, dried and turned into protein-rich flour.

Apparently, this powder could be fed to chickens, cattle and other farm animals, thus eliminating the farmers' need to set aside parts of their crops in order to feed livestock.

New Scientist says that similar studies involving maggots and waste are presently being carried out in the US, South Africa and Spain, and that it might not be long before the first poo-to-food commercial plant makes its debut.