It’s Sunday evening and you realize you have no clean underwear or socks, and after a desperate search for quarters, borrowing some from neighbors and going through old jackets and purses, you are still short of two precious coins worth 25 cents each. There is a simple solution for you: make a “donation” to the Oberlin Living Machine and the “Quarter Poops” campaign and put an end to your worries.

“Our motto is, ‘Like Quarter Beers? Poop in our toilets and get your quarter back!’” said junior Apostol Dyankov, one of the students who work on the LM year round.

A group of 20 students led by two faculty members, Associate Professor of Biology John Petersen and Facilities Manager and Education Coordinator Cheryl Wolfe-Cragin, is starting the revised campaign next week, trying to encourage students to use the bathrooms in the A.J. Lewis Environmental Center and thus to support the Living Machine.

“The idea can be demonstrated with a simple logic diagram,” said Gavin Platt, a junior operator and lab assistant for the LM. “Donate your solid waste at the Environmental Studies Center; earn a quarter for your contribution; use that quarter to purchase a beer at Quarter Beers; rinse and repeat.”

The $3 million Living Machine is one of only 10 building installations of its kind. It is designed to remove organic wastes, nutrients and pathogens, which are dangerous for the ecosystems. Then the water cleaned by the LM is reused in the building’s toilets and for the landscape of the Lewis Center.

“The Living Machine provides an opportunity to understand how our wastewater is cleaned and reused in a process that mimics the natural functions of a wetland ecosystem,” Platt said.

Currently, however, the LM is not operating at its maximum efficiency because of the lack of sewage.

“The LM was designed to handle 2,400 gallons of wastewater daily,” Platt said, “but right now it is only processing 200-300 gallons, or less than 10 percent of its capacity.”

When there is not enough “material” going through the LM, it is much more difficult to work with.

“Because flow is quite low, it is hard to conduct research on the Living Machine and then compare that research to other functioning wastewater treatment plants,” said senior Rachel Cohn.

“A higher flow would give us more comparable research results and would also help by increasing awareness about the Living Machine,” she added. “Many people on campus have never heard about the Living Machine or what it is used for.”

This is why the Quarter Poop campaign is a necessary thing to do.

“It’s not that the LM is sick and dying, like people thought last year,” Dyankov said. “It is designed to have 10 times more sewage, so it’s more like it’s hungry.”

The students and professors work hard all year long on the LM to keep it going efficiently.

“Ultimately, everything that is now considered waste either needs to be eliminated or rediscovered as a resource,” said Petersen. “Human waste is in the second category – ultimately the nutrients in our waste need to be returned to the land to rejuvenate agricultural productivity.”

He also said that he views the “poop campaign” as “an important mechanism for educating the campus and challenging our concept of waste.”

The campaign is designed so that when people use the bathrooms in the AJLC, they can put their names on a sign-up sheet located in the hallway between the two bathrooms. Once the sign-up sheet is full, they will be contacted about where they can go to pick up their quarters.

“A lot of people on campus are very concerned about where their food comes from but not many people think about where their waste goes,” Cohn said.

She believes that through raising awareness about the LM and its function, a connection between food, people and waste can be established.Or, as Platt put it, “Think globally, poop locally.”

“Just as we have been increasingly distanced from most food sources, we’ve also distanced ourselves from our waste products,” he added.

Cohn mentioned that among the future goals for the LM is to increase the inflow by connecting to it the sewage line for all of South Campus.

“Although the LM does not have the capacity to process all of that waste, we would allow for a constant high flow of waste into the LM year-round, which is currently not possible.”

“Our other motto is ‘Stercus Accidit,’” Dyankov said. “In Latin this means ‘Shit Happens,’ we put it on pins.”