Pee-cycling: Turning human urine into fertilizer

Researchers around the world are studying the use of recycled human urine as agricultural fertilizer, to return precious nutrients and minerals to the soil. Correspondent Faith Salie talks with representatives of the Rich Earth Institute about the process of collecting, pasteurizing and distributing massive quantities of pee, and with farmers and gardeners in Vermont who are using urine on their land.

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Last month California became the second state in  the nation to allow specially treated Wastewater   to be used for drinking and other household needs  which brings to mind a recycling effort underway   in Vermont that we admit defies easy description  faith Salie on job number [Music] one here’s Lissa  

Schneckenburger performing for us and for the  plants in her Brattleboro Vermont Garden the   tomatoes seem happy so do the bees and this may  be the reason why here is Lissa enriching the   garden with her own family’s urine when we tell  people about it they’re mostly confused they’re  

Just like what why what welcome to the world of  pee-cycling where urine is not considered waste   but Liquid Gold if you meet someone new and they  say what do you do how do you answer yeah uh I say  

I work at an organization that’s um developing  ways to turn human urine into fertilizer that   organization is called the rich Earth Institute  and Abe Noe-Hays is its co-founder along with Kim   Nace people are usually a little taken back  but then I just kind of I give them the real  

Quick there’s nutrients in your urine and we are  figuring out how to capture those and use them   in agriculture how many pee jokes do you deal  with on a daily basis pee jokes are constant   but to Nace and Noe-Hays the concept of saving  and reusing human urine is a serious Endeavor  

So what is in urine that plants need nitrogen  phosphorus potassium and other trace minerals   that come through our body as we eat our food  and then use the toilet how much urine are you   collecting at this point about 12,000 gallons a  year researchers around the US and the world are  

Studying urine recycling in Sweden in Switzerland  in France and in South Africa and other count   countries and the rich Earth Institute regularly  offers educational webinars what do you think   would surprise people the most that it is clean  that it doesn’t look gross and it doesn’t smell  

And the Privacy thing too that was a surprise to  me it’s totally quiet so there’s no flush there’s   no flush that’s because Lissa schneckenburger uses  a very special toilet with two compartments toilet   paper and solid waste go in the back and then your  goes in the front so there’s two compartments both  

Go into separate compartments downstairs in  these collection tanks Rich Earth comes with   a big truck and a big hose and they empty the  urine tank twice a year how much urine have you   saved it’s a lot and if you don’t happen to have  a special toilet the rich Earth Institute offers  

This low Tech portable urinal now would only a  man use this no um men can use it but women can   also squat over this Rich Earth also makes it  easy for donors to deliver their liquid waste  

To a downtown Depot as you can see the process  requires no pouring I think it’s pretty great   Kevin O’Brien is a community tool librarian who’s  been bringing his urine here for 3 years for me it  

Takes me about a month to to fill up a 5 gallon  jug so I’m kind of come to the the depot about   once a month to donate although I want to reach  towards the goal of donating 100 gallons a year  

Those who do receive a lovely certificate from  Rich Earth so the urine comes in goes through   this system urine is typically free of harmful  bacteria but if it gets near solid waste that   could lead to disease so Abe Noe-Hays says that  all of the urine that rich Earth collects is  

Pasteurized to Federal standards it’s clean yeah  it’s heated up pathogens die it cools back down   and then it leaves the machine and then Arthur  Davis transfers the clean urine from the huge   storage tanks to his trucks containers around 1  000 gallons at a time it’s actually about 4 tons  

On his big yellow truck with the custom license  plate Davis oversees the entire collection and   distribution process we’re dealing with chemistry  we’re dealing with Biology we’re also dealing with   psychology of people because people have all kinds  of thoughts about it ready for you today he’s  

Delivering to a True Believer Noah Hoskins owner  of the Bunker Farm Hoskins says his grazing fields   are thirsty for pee if you are taking nutrients  out of the ground you need to be replenishing   those nutrients in some form or another a  lot of pee cycling is still in the research  

And development phase a pH of 4.66 but Kim Nace  and Abe Noe-Hays imagine a bright yellow future   you’re kind of asking for a cultural change we’re  not asking people to do something this difficult   you just use the toilet that thing you just did  that was great you know that you made something  

Useful and you made something that’s going to do  good in the world people like oh really I did oh yeah