Kate Lucy was not sure what to think when she saw a poster in town about peecycling. She wondered why someone pees in a jug and saves it. It sounds crazy.
She had to work the evening of the information session, so she sent her husband to make her feel better. He brought with him a jug and funnel.
Mr. Sellers learned seven years ago that human urine contains the same amount of vitamins and minerals as plants. It has more pathogens than Number Two. Chemicals are applied to crops in the form of nitrogen,Phosphory andPotassium. Fossil fuels and mining have high environmental costs.
The local nonprofit group that ran the session was working on a more sustainable approach.
Sign up for the Climate Forward newsletter Your must-read guide to the climate crisis.Experts say that efforts like these are getting more urgent. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has worsened a worldwide fertilizer shortage that is driving farmers to desperation and threatens food supplies. Climate change will make feeding a growing population more difficult, warn scientists.
Lucy and her husband are part of a global movement that seeks to address a number of challenges by not wasting our waste.
It was difficult to collect their urine in a jug. They were both nurses and he was a preschool teacher. They went from dropping off containers at an organizers home to installing large tanks at their own house.
Ms. Lucy doesn't like using a regular toilet. Lucy said, "We make this amazing fertilization with our bodies, and then we flush it away with gallons of another precious resource." It is really crazy to think about.
According to the EPA, toilets are the largest source of water use inside homes. As climate change increases the need for water in places like the American West, swer management could save a lot of water.
It could help with one of the biggest problems: Insufficient Sanitation systems overload rivers, lakes and coastal waters with pollutants from urine. It's worse because of the runoff from chemicalfertilizer. Mass die offs of animals and plants are caused by algal blooms.
The manatees in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida are in dire need of sea grass because of sewage-generated blooms.
Rebecca Nelson is a professor of plant science and global development at Cornell University.
Some are drawn to the idea of transforming urine intofertilizer because of the practical benefits. They say they are taking a revolutionary step towards tackling the biodiversity and climate crises by using something once flushed away.
Chemicalfertilizer is unsustainable. Fossil fuels are used in both ways in the production of ammonia. As the source of hydrogen, it is necessary for the chemical process that converts nitrogen from the air into ammonia to take place. Ammonia manufacturing contributes 1-2% of global carbon dioxide emissions. With an ever diminishing supply, rock is the primary source of phosphorite.
How could female farmers increase their crop yields if they didn't use urine fertilization? The women had a hard time finding or transporting enough animal manure to replenish their soils. The cost of chemicalfertilizer was too high.
A group of people, including the director of the Federation of Maradi Farmers' Unions, guessed that the fields closer to people's homes were getting a boost from people urinating outside. They consulted with medical doctors and religious leaders to make sure it would be okay to use urine tofertilize.
Mr. Ali said that they wanted to test the hypothesis.
It took some convincing, but in the first year they had 27 volunteers who collected urine in jugs and applied it to plants along with animal waste.
The results were very good. About 100 more women were using it the next year. Pearl millet, the staple crop, increased in yield by about 30 percent when urine was used as a source of animal waste. It could mean more food for a family, or the ability to sell their surplus at the market and get cash for other needs.
It was taboo for some women to use the word urine, so they changed it to oga, which means "boss".
The pee stays in the jug for two months before the farmer applies it. If the ground is wet, the urine is used at full strength, while if it is dry, the urine is used at a ratio of1:1. The smell is helped by scarves or masks.
The men were skeptical at first. The results spoke for themselves, and soon men began to save their urine as well.
Parents are competing to get their children to use their container of urine. Some kids are starting to demand money or candy in exchange for their services.
There are other people who see economic potential as well. The price of 25 liters of urine has increased from $1 to $6 in the last couple years.
Mr. Ali said you can pick up your urine like you pick up water or fuel.
The current Fertilizer crisis isn't solved by the research on harvesting and packaging urine. Changing plumbing infrastructure would need to be done.
The ick factor is confronted by peecycling supporters.
Kim Nace, a co-founder of the Rich Earth Institute, said that human waste is already being used to fertilize foods.
biosolids, which are leftovers from wastewater plants, contain only a small amount of urine's nutrition. Potentially harmful chemicals can be found from industrial sources.
Ms Nace said that urine is a better option.
Every spring, in the hills around the Rich Earth Institute, a truck with a license plate reading "P4Farms" delivers the Pasteurized Goods.
Noah Hoskins, who raises animals at the Bunker Farm in Dummerston, said that he sees very strong results from the urine. He wanted the Rich Earth Institute to have more pee. A part of our system that is way out of our control is represented by the doubling in price of chemicalfertilizer.
It doesn't make sense to truck urine from cities to distant farmlands because it's mostly water.
The University of Michigan is working with the Rich Earth Institute to make a pee concentrate. Dr. Nelson and colleagues at Cornell are trying to make biochar, a kind of charcoal, from the feces of people. Nelson noted that poop contributes carbon, another important part of healthy soil, along with smaller amounts of phosphorus, Potassium and Nitrogen.
Experiments and pilot projects are happening all over the world. Scientists in Cape Town are trying to find new ways to reuse urine. In Paris, pee-diverting toilets will be installed in 600 new apartments, treated the urine and used for the city's tree nursery and green spaces.
Karthish Manthiram is a professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. A clean process to synthesise nitrogen is being developed by his lab. It's too early to tell what's going to win out and these are all methods that need to be pursued
The current methods of acquiringfertilizer will be replaced because they are unsustainable.
Peecyclers in Vermont say that their work gives them a sense of satisfaction because they think about their own body's vitamins and minerals helping to heal, instead of hurting the earth.
Julia Cavicchi works at the Rich Earth Institute. She said thatPuns aren't the only reason she's in this field.
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