The NEED

Zoos around the world annually face the same problem of dealing with the accumulation of thousands of pounds and bacterial-dense animal waste and have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to properly dispose of it. With budget cuts looming over many zoos, zoological institutions need to cut operational costs in as many areas as possible. In addition to the decreased funding, the health of zoo animals has diminished due to poor nutritional blends of animal feed.

Our SOLUTION

Our plan is to drastically cut the costs of animal waste disposal at the zoo by using algae cultures to recover nutrients.

Why Algae?

Algae are single celled organisms which have the capability of quadrupling in biomass daily if given the proper nutrients. Harvested algae are often classified as a super food and have been consumed in human diets for many generations. Our plan is to create nutrient rich slurry made from animal waste and botanical waste, we plan to use this as a food source to grow and harvest algae. Algae are an extremely nutrient rich food source and different blends can be optimized for 65% Protein content, 70% Fat content, and 90% Carbohydrate content. One tablespoon of spirulina algae has the protein content of a chicken egg and is a very rich source of bioavailable vitamins and antioxidants.

The Zoo is the perfect candidate for ZooPoo,

Because most animals are extremely inefficient at recovering nutrients from their food we plan to recover leftover nutrients from the waste using algae as our mechanism. We plan to use our harvested algae as part of a blend with traditional food sources to feed back to the animals and cut costs. Our harvested algae can also be used as a fertilizer source; (at the zoo, or sold to the public) algae fertilizer has been shown to increase yield of plants by 30% while drastically increasing growth rate. Each pound of algae biomass consumes two pounds of Carbon Dioxide daily and converts it into pure oxygen as well.