Should we be trying to create a circular urine economy?

Making use of a common waste material, such as urine, can be used to decrease the amount of nitrogen in the water.

Excess nitrogen and phosphorus in our waste streams can cause problems for the marine and lake environment. According to the website of the Rich Earth Institute, a Vermont based company focused on using human waste as a resource, most of the nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater comes from human urine. 75 percent of the nitrogen and 55 percent of the phosphorus can be removed by removing urine. They could be recycled for use asfertilizer.

The systems are used to the way they are. Wastewater infrastructure is set up to get waste out of the house without much thought, using pipes that already exist and toilets people are familiar with. Changing some of these details would need to be done, while more acceptance of waste would be required.

The power of one

According to Abe Noe-Hays, co- founder of Rich Earth, the statistics on urine's place in wastewater is what got the ball rolling on urine diversion.

The body has a urine diverter. When sitting on the toilet, pee goes to the front of the bowl, while feces goes to the back. While the back of the toilet bowl is connected to a wastewater treatment system, the front half can catch the urine and send it to a separate drain. The urine is diverted to a tank. Good aim is a bonus if it's used while standing, and some new plumbing is required, but it is not perfect.

The World Health Organization has guidelines for how long urine should be stored if there is a chance of fecal mixing. Noe-Hays said that urine has self-sanitized enough to be used on anything.

If the urine is only urine, it will be ready to be used as a nitrogen- and phosphorus-richfertilizer when it leaves the body. It's important to get a separation. According to Vinners, feces are the main source of pathogens in urine. He said that some mixing is unavoidable.

urine can act to partially sterilize itself if separated. Urine is an organic compound that comes from the nitrogen in urine. Urea can be broken down into ammonia. The ammonia raises the solution's pH to about eight or nine. Vinners said that the high pH environment kills any pathogens that enter the urine.

Noe-Hays referred to urine as a Twinkie.

Ease of transport

The study looked at concentrations of drugs in urine. Ibuprofen and caffeine were some of the most popular drugs. Drug concentration in the crops was very low after urine was applied. A person would have to eat a pound of produce every day for about 2,000 years to get the amount ofCaffeine in a cup of coffee from urine-fertilized produce.

Noe-Hays said that urine works wonders for gardeners. Noe-Hays said there is no need for a high concentration of vitamins for urine to be used as afertilizer. What matters is its mass. 50 pounds of nitrogen can be added if 1,000 gallons of urine is poured on anacre. Noe-Hays said that only 100 gallons would need to be applied to get the same effect. He said that the hay doesn't care if you're applying concentrate or the diluting. It doesn't matter how much it gets.

It is important to take advantage of the ability to concentrate urine for it to be useful as afertilizer. Brightwater Tools is trying to concentrate urine by freezing it.

It's possible to freeze the water out of urine and use it on a farm or home. If urine-diverting toilets are used in an office building, concentrating the urine will make the volume more manageable. The urine can be washed, Pasteurized, and Freeze-concentrated on-site, instead of needing multiple visits from urine-specific trucks to empty the tanks. The concentration levels reached a factor of 10 in trials, meaning that trucks might come to collect every few months instead of weekly.

Dehydration was brought up as a way to make urine fertilization useful on a bigger scale. The urea breakdown in pipes is something he is researching. If urea doesn't break down, the nitrogen remains solid when dehydrated, creating a dryfertilizer of 15 to 20% nitrogen.

The chance to piggyback on existing infrastructure is what he sees as the biggest advantage of producing a dry product. Storage of dryfertilizer can be accomplished by piling bags on top of each other.