Purple is the new black.
Purple bacteria are poised to turn your toilet into a source of energy and useable organic material.
Household sewage and industrial wastewater are very rich in organic compounds, and organic compounds can be very useful. But there’s a catch: we don’t know of any efficient way to extract them from the eww goo yet. So these resource-laden liquids get treated, and the material they contain is handled as a contaminant.
New research plans to address this problem — and by using an environmentally-friendly and cost-efficient solution to boot.