Nature's eco-friendly loo: The pitcher plant

With so many cleantech minds focussed on ways to reduce sewage waste and better manage water resources, could tomorrow’s eco-friendly loo be found in the jungles of Borneo?

Perhaps, considering the findings recently reported in the journal Biology Letters, which describe a type of pitcher plant that, rather than digesting unfortunate insects like most other pitcher plants, feasts on the feces of tree shrews that perch on the plants to nibble their nectar. Those droppings provide a significant source of nitrogen for the particular pitcher plant, known as Nepenthes lowii.

In shape, the plant even bears some resemblance to your typical loo.

Of course, barring some genetic engineering to boost the plant’s size, you’d have to be the size of a tree shrew to take advantage of this exceptionally green sewage management system.