What Are You Doing With Your Pee?

Required Eating

Posted by Robyn Lee, March 13, 2008 at 3:15 PM

Don't flush just yet! The project drinkpeedrinkpeedrinkpee taking place at Eyebeam in New York City from March 13 to April 19 aims to raise awareness about the role your body (or more specifically, its waste) plays in the water system. To illustrate the potential for using properly treated urine—a sterile liquid—as a fertilizer for plants, Urine to Fertilizer DIY Kits will be available at the installation. How does the kit work?

Users will test their urine before the reaction. Then, they will add an enzyme, wait for their urine to hydrolyze, and then add Magnesium Chloride. A sediment will build up at the bottom of the jar. Using a filter, they will pour off and flush the liquid, leaving the fertilizer in the jar. They can add water and the seeds included in the kit to grow their own watercress hydroponically in the glass container used for the reaction.

For more information about treating urine to extract its nutrients, read this press release from EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology). [via Cool Hunting]

20 Comments | Tags: environment, events, health, New York City, science

20 Comments:

errr, ummm
i'm kinda speechless...

but GO URINE!

cook eat FRET at 3:41PM on 03/13/08

no.

bisbee at 3:42PM on 03/13/08

I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with food, eating, or cooking.

DaveFaris at 3:44PM on 03/13/08

Only if I had someone I really despised to feed it to! Fortunately, there is no one, so count me OUT.

PerkyMac at 3:55PM on 03/13/08

Yeah, sure!

**wink wink** **nudge nudge**

srhcb at 4:02PM on 03/13/08

I did expect that most people would be turned off by this idea, but I hoped someone (well, at least one person besides me) would find it interesting...

To me, this project is relevant to this website because it has to do with growing...stuff. Not specifically food (yet?), but the possibility is there. To think that you can recycle something that we make every day (uh, hopefully) into a useful fertilizer is...neat, among other adjectives I can't pick out right now. Also, urine left untreated is a pollutant in water, which disrupts marine life and then...well, anything that feeds off the water.

So, to put it ineloquently, this kit takes something that could kill fish and extracts the nutrients so it can grow plants. And not kill stuff. Or something.

roboppy at 4:37PM on 03/13/08

What I do with my pee is my business, Robyn.

Raphael at 4:46PM on 03/13/08

@Raphael: But you kept talking about how open we should be with one another...

Now I understand...our friendship is a big sham.

roboppy at 4:50PM on 03/13/08

Are you just testing us to see if we're paying attention?

amylou61 at 5:04PM on 03/13/08

Maybe I wouldn't mind reading about it so much if there wasn't a photo accompanying it.

aharste at 5:38PM on 03/13/08

I agree with Dave Faris, where is the connection and why was that diagram necessary? Gah.

Hillary
Chew on That

Chew on That at 5:56PM on 03/13/08

@hillary: did you read Robyn's response to DaveFaris?

Raphael at 6:45PM on 03/13/08

I love the acronym for the "more info" group--EAWAG. Kinda sounds like my reflex response to this idea/picture...

Cary at 7:32PM on 03/13/08

Next on Serious Eats : Guano & You!

DaveFaris at 8:47PM on 03/13/08

OK, urine is bad enough but like Dave says, .....if next on the agenda is poop I'm out of here!!!

RichardCrystal at 9:35AM on 03/14/08

OMG- I can't believe my friend is right about the pee. He told me about this awhile ago and said he used it as added "fertilizer" and nutrients to the soil. Hmm, would this process be consider organic?

mchow at 9:53AM on 03/14/08

My favorite use for urine is to make phosphorus - the cold fire:
http://www.ul.ie/~childsp/CinA/Issue60/TOC55_Urine.htm
And yes, I know this has nothing to do with food either.

crackblind at 1:57PM on 03/14/08

Asparagus anyone?

wookie at 5:03PM on 03/14/08

@wookie....ha..ha..ha. Come on, we all do it. (pee, I mean) Not an appetizing thread, but certainly interesting. Thanks Robyn, certainly didn't expect that topic title! I expected the jump to be "What are you doing with your pee?....pers this Easter?" (Get it, Peepers? Yeah, it was a stretch)

radley24 at 6:49PM on 03/14/08

Correction: The urine-fertilizer kits were actually developed as part of an art installation by Britta Riley and myself, Rebecca Bray. The science is based on research by EAWAG, but the kits were not made by them. http://www.submersibledesign.com/drinkpee/

recca at 4:36PM on 03/17/08

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