You can sell your poop

You can donate blood, plasma, eggs, and sperm. Why not poop? Yes, your feces are perhaps your greatest untapped monetary resource.Everybody poops. That’s not just the name of a popular potty training book, but it’s an essential fact of life. However, most people merely flush it away without a second thought. In the spirit of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure, the non-profit company OpenBiome is actually paying for stool samples in order to create lifesaving fecal transplant treatments for those infected with Clostridium difficile, a bacteria which is highly resistant to antibiotics.

Source

 Infections of C. difficile result in severe diarrhea, hospitalizing 250,000 Americans each year and causing about 14,000 deaths. It can actually come about after using antibiotics for too long, which ties into what makes it exceptionally difficult to treat. The patient’s gut microbiota is nearly wiped out, and conventional probiotics are not sufficient to replace them.
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Requirements for Donors

Caveat: 

You have to live within commuting distance from Boston and be in excellent health, especially as far as your fecal matter is concerned. Some other guidelines are

Types one or two, defined by the Bristol Stool Chart as “like nuts” or “lumpy,” are too dry to process into a treatment.

If a donor’s stool is “mushy” or “watery” — that’s a type six or seven — then it can’t be used because it could be a sign the donor has a gastrointestinal infection.

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The perfect poop is type three, which is “like a sausage but with cracks on its surface;” type four, which is “like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft;” or type five, “soft blobs with clear-cut edges (passed easily).” [Link 1, Link 2]

Over the last four years, only 4 percent of interested donors have passed the screening process, co-founder Mark Smith told WaPo. (Link) -->

Rate

The going rate is $40 per donation, with a $50 kicker for those who come five days a week. This translates into $250 per week, or $13,000 per year. OpenBiome tries to make the experience as fun as they can by offering prizes to donors who make the most donations, provide the biggest sample, etc. However, there’s no word on if OpenBiome offers a fun sticker to show off your donation to friends and family, such as the “Be nice to me, I gave blood today” badge handed out by the Red Cross.
 [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]