Dr George McGavin and Dr Zoe Laughlin set up base camp at one of the UK's biggest sewage works to investigate the revolutionary science finding vital renewable resources and undiscovered life in human waste. Teaming up with world-class scientists, they search for biological entities in sewage with potentially lifesaving medical properties, find out how pee can generate electricity, how gas from poo can fuel a car and how nutrients in waste can help solve the soil crisis. They follow each stage of the sewage treatment process, revealing what the stuff we flush can tell us about how we live today, and the mind boggling biotechnology being harnessed to clean it, making the wastewater safe enough to return to the environment.
A group of brave individuals risk their lives to save the last of the world's mountain gorillas; in the midst of renewed civil war and a scramble for Congo's natural resources." Virunga National Park in the Congo is a place of unique natural beauty. It is the home to a plethora of wonderful animals and vegetation but as is so often the way, it has several serious problems that threaten it. It's the location of human violence, corruption and exploitation. The disasters that specifically loom are two different groups, the M23 and SOCO International. The former are a violent rebel force who engages in an ongoing civil war with the Congolese government and the latter are a British energy company who specialise in oil exploration. Both M23 and SOCO invade the park in their own ways and neither seems very interested in the laws that have been set up to protect the flora and fauna that exist there, far less the people who live there. It seems hardly surprising in the case of M23, as they are a paramilitary organisation who can hardly be expected to be concerned with such things but it is the more legitimate big business SOCO who seem more worrying if anything. We discover in fact that they have been involved in a bribery campaign, utilising M23 as enforcers. It's a very murky situation where big money walks all over an impoverished nation and disregards a natural space that they can see no value in in their pursuit of financial profit.
Teaming up with world-class scientists, they search for biological entities in sewage with potentially lifesaving medical properties, find out how pee can generate electricity, how gas from poo can fuel a car and how nutrients in waste can help solve the soil crisis. They follow each stage of the sewage treatment process, revealing what the stuff we flush can tell us about how we live today, and the mind boggling biotechnology being harnessed to clean it, making the wastewater safe enough to return to the environment.