Push to start mining gold from poo

We are flushing millions worth or precious metals down the toilet. Image: Getty

When you are sitting on the toilet it turns out you are also sitting on a gold mine.

Faeces is the last place you would expect to find gold, but scientists have suggested mining raw sewage for precious metals.

According to research by the American Chemical Society, human waste flushed down the toilet contains a fortune worth of silver, platinum and gold.

According to a study published earlier this year in Environmental Science and Technology, faeces from one million Americans might contain $13 million worth of metal.

By the same calculations, there would be about $299 million worth of human waste floating around in Australia.

Also read: How the Chinese are turning fecal sludge into ‘black gold’

Dr Kathleen Smith of the US Geological Survey says our bodies are full of metals that we then excrete.

"There are metals everywhere - they are in your hair care products, detergents, even nanoparticles that are put in socks to prevent bad odours,” Dr Smith says.

Dr Smith argues that mining for these precious metals would be beneficial for the environment and would also have pecuniary gain.

"If you can get rid of some of the nuisance metals that currently limit how much of these biosolids we can use on fields and forests, and at the same time recover valuable metals and other elements, that's a win-win, Dr Smith says.

"In the other part of the project, we're interested in collecting valuable metals that could be sold, including some of the more technologically important metals, such as vanadium and copper that are in cell phones, computers and alloys."