The UK is now home to a dog waste-powered street lamp that creates electricity using canine deposits.

After a vigorous walk in the Malvern Hills, walkers can deposit their dog's stool in the washing machine-like contraption which is attached to a lamp.

It is then broken down by microorganisms to produce methane for the light and fertiliser for farmers.

Ten bags of poop in this anaerobic digestor can power the light for two hours, the creator claims, and could spell the end for plump little bags littering roadside verges.

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Dog walkers have to deposit their bag of excrement in the small machine which is attached to the lamppost and then turn the handle. As it is heated and mixed in the anaerobic digestor the poo gives off biomethane which produces electricity to power the light

HOW DOES IT WORK? Dog walkers have to simply deposit their bag of excrement in the small machine which is attached to the lamppost and then turn the handle. As it is heated and mixed in the anaerobic digestor the poo gives off biomethane which produces electricity to power the light. Ten bags of poop in this anaerobic digestor can power the light for two hours, the creator claims. In developed western countries, plants extracting heat and electricity from animal manure and human sewage is widespread. However, the availability of cheap fossil fuels has stopped this potentially valuable resource from being exploited to its full potential. Increasingly people all over the world are wising up to potential uses of this largely untapped resource. Advertisement

Brian Harper, who came up with the idea of the machine three years ago, has created the innovative light near Malvern Hills in Worcestershire with the help of funding from the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

'The gas light captures people's imagination and shows them dog poo has a value,' Mr Harper, from community environmental group Transition Malvern Hills, told the Guardian.

'As a result, we get it [poo] off the ground, into a receptacle, and producing something useful.'

Dog walkers have to deposit their bag of excrement in the small machine which is attached to the lamppost and then turn the handle.

As it is heated and mixed in the anaerobic digestor the poo gives off biomethane which produces electricity to power the light.

The concept of making use of excrement is not new - since Neolithic times, humans have been using animal dung as fuel.

In developed western countries, plants extracting heat and electricity from animal manure and human sewage is widespread.

However, the availability of cheap fossil fuels has stopped this potentially valuable resource from being exploited to its full potential.

Increasingly people all over the world are wising up to potential uses of this largely untapped resource.

In Ontario people are being asked to put their pet's poo in concrete storage units.

These are mixed with other forms of organic waste and broken down in a large central plant. The resulting methane is used for electricity and the fertiliser is sold to farmers.

After a vigorous walk in the Malvern Hills, walkers can deposit their dog's stool in the washing machine-like contraption which is attached to a lamp. Ten bags of poop in this anaerobic digestor can power the light for two hours (stock image)

Brian Harper, who came up with the idea of the machine three years ago, has created the innovative light near Malvern Hills in Worcestershire

Experts believe this scheme - which has been tested in an 18-month trial - could generate enough electricity to power 13 homes.

In 2014, Britain's first bus powered by human waste was taken to the streets.

The 40-seater 'Bio-Bus' is fuelled by biomethane gas, generated by the treatment of sewage and food waste at a processing plant in the south west.

And a single tank of the gas - produced using the typical annual waste of just five people - is enough to power the vehicle for 190 miles (305km).

The gas is being produced at a Wessex Water sewerage plant, run by energy firm GENeco.

The 40-seater 'Bio-Bus' (pictured) is fuelled by biomethane gas, generated by the treatment of sewage and food waste at a processing plant in the south west

It also became the first company to start delivering gas generated from human waste directly to around 5,000-6,000 homes by the national grid.

The waste plant in Avonmouth, Bristol, treats 75 million cubic metres of sewage waste, and 35,000 tonnes of food waste, every year.

Using anaerobic digestion - the process of using bacteria to break down substances in the absence of oxygen - the plant is able to produce 17 million tonnes of biomethane a year.

'Our facility is no longer a traditional sewage treatment works but a factory, taking inputs including sewage and food waste and turning them into products including gas for cooking or transport and nitrogen- and phosphate-rich fertiliser,' Mohammed Saddiq, managing director of GENeco told the Guardian.

'People talk about the circular economy, but what we are doing is putting that vision into practice', he said.