My daughter is almost 3-years-old. As most parents can appreciate, this means my wife and I spent the better part of the last year wrestling with one, seemingly small but wholly monumental achievement: getting Lily to poop in the potty. For some reason, peeing in the potty came naturally for her - but pooping in the potty was another story all together. First, it was scary - there were rumors of monsters lurking, just below her exposed bum. Then, after my wife and I thoroughly debunked the monsters in the potty notion, Lily changed her tune, saying pooping on the potty was "ouchy."

She was just grasping at strings, of course - but it did successfully thwart pooping on the potty for at least a couple more weeks. Our daughter (along with being stubborn) is wise beyond her years.

It was this realization that finally unlocked the answer: Lily is smart. Maybe she just needed a good reason to poop on the potty (seeing as the fact her mom and I didn't want to change diapers anymore wasn't doing it for her).

Enter Tacoma's Tagro.

Just like everywhere else in the civilized world, when people in Tacoma take a dump and flush the toilet - it goes somewhere. It doesn't just disappear; it's still poop, you just can't see it anymore. Somewhere, someone has to deal with it - and in Tacoma that's exactly why Tagro was created.

When a toilet in Tacoma is flushed, that "wastewater" makes its way to one of two treatment plants - with the end result being water clean enough to release back deep into Commencement Bay. However, during that process, all the "biodegradable organic material" - or "cake" - or "poop that doesn't have syringes or crazy Legos stuck in it" is removed. This "cake" is then mixed with sand and wood chips to create one of two types of Tagro, original Tagro that's mainly used for large landscaping projects or small scale local farming, and Tagro potting soil - which can be seen in gardens and raised beds all over Tacoma. A liquid Tagro, the first incarnation of the human poop based fertilizer, is also available - though its use has decreased significantly since the Tagro program's inception.

In short, the idea of Tagro is to turn shit into something useable, which the City of Tacoma has been valiantly doing on the Tacoma Tideflats since 1991. Today, gardeners, landscapers and a whole swath of the general Tacoma population are proud and satisfied Tagro users, even if a minority still can't get over the product's origins. Tagro is completely safe and extremely effective, even having been awarded the EPA's highest rating for use in landscaping, vegetable gardens and indoor container gardens.

Last week Tagro's Tom Amundson gave me a tour of the operation. Managing to limit himself to only one "brown trout" joke, Amundson described what makes Tacoma's approach to poop so unique.

"If you don't do anything with it, the raw material goes to a landfill," says Amundson of what might happen to all Tacoma's poop if it weren't for Tagro. "It's an interesting concept. It's one of those things you never think about until the utility bill comes.

"Other municipalities take different strategies. Every city has to do something with it. It's kind of out of sight out of mind," explains Amundson, who says the thing that makes Tacoma's Tagro program so unique is the public nature of it. While other cities may turn their poop into fertilizer products, most of them don't then sell that fertilizer back to the general public - preferring instead to utilize a few, major corporate developers to make use of the poop under the radar.

As one might expect, the biggest challenge facing Tagro - especially considering its always-growing reputation for producing strong gardens and green grass - is the public perception. Shockingly enough, some people will just never be comfortable growing vegetables or planting a lawn on soil made from poop - especially if, on a warm, muggy, summer day - that soil even kind of smells a little funky.

"Getting people to understand this is not a waste material (is the biggest challenge). It used to be waste material, but it's not anymore," offers Amundson.

"This is the single best fertilizer on the planet," Amundson says of the product that surrounds us.

There are gardens all over Tacoma that prove it - and at least one toddler that's now pooping in the potty because of it.

[Tagro - Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, 2201 Portland Ave., Gate 6, Tacoma, 253.502.2150]