Pee-cycling: Turning human urine into fertilizer 

What about the medications that are eliminated in our urine? I'm not against pee as fertilizer. But I do have questions.

This is the most Vermont thing ever

Love this story, and good for Sunday Morning to explore the new frontiers in expanding how we can renew, reuse, regenerate. A lot to learn from watching this episode, thanks for covering!

I love this story, but I wish it had also covered the historical context which would show that as recently as the Victorian era this recycling of human waste was standard practice. Night Soil men would scour the streets for dog “muck” and pay a few pennies for the contents of chamber pots which they could sell for fertilizers and to leather tanners.

Hormones and pharmaceuticals leftovers need to be addressed especially for direct consumption as drinking water.

Have you tried talking to some of the local bars I'm sure they can help😂

This can't be any worse than manure that is spread here on Wisconsin fields! We always know when the farmers are spreading it because it takes over the fresh air, lol!

We used pee for our garden when I was kid 70 years ago in Taiwan. Most farmer in Taiwan my grandmother’s time they use P for vegetable gardens.

Cool. I have been using my urine in my garden for about a year. It is amazing. I pour directly on the soil around plants watered down, and also compost with sawdust and azomite and oyster shell lime and other dolomitic lime. It doesn't smell when it is fresh and it doesn't smell when it composts which takes 24 hours or less once you've got a good composting culture started. It does stink pretty bad if you leave it in a bottle.

I have been using urine as just one of the nutrient sources in my organic garden for almost 40 yrs.. I don't use any pharmaceuticals, and eat a well balanced diet. My other nutrient sources are compost (made myself) and chicken manure/pine shaving litter.

I’d love to have my husband water my compost pile but we live in town and I’m sure my neighbors would not appreciate looking out the window and seeing that. 😂 Someday when we live in the country…..

So the tomatoes are on Prozac?

My father used his own urine in his garden when I was little (1971). He died, or he would still be using it. If I'd remembered this when I was still able to garden, I'd have probably done it too, back when I didn't use any medications.

Brawndo has what plants crave.

In the Philippines,We had been using urine to fertilize flowering plants

Someone needs to get with truck drivers. They might not leave there pee bottles all over the place, making others pick up after them. I’ve been trucking for over 25 years, and the one thing I hate is the smell of urine soaked pavement at truck stops.

This is fantastic. What's the next step? Can we get them to partner with Kohler, American Standard, Moen to make these toilets and collection systems commonplace?

As a man I have been fertilizing many trees over the years! Until my neighbors called the cops on me!

What about all the pharmaceuticals that humans take

I've been saving my #1 and using it for feeding my landscaping plants...

Been doing this for years. I use wood ash not to much mixed in before planting. Everyone loves my tomatoes. I’ve also used it to grow grass in bare spots. 10-20% urine to 80-90% water. Of course I never pour this on the plants only the soil. Myself I will not put this around lettuce. Oh I fertilize my Apple trees with urine also.

Fertilizer producers will make all kinds of campaign to discredit these innovative and thoughtful people. Natural will always be better than lab-made

It's not "public urination"... it's fertilizing... at least that's what I'm tellin' the cop next pub crawl... ;-P

Adding urine to a compost pile is a known way to kick start a compost pile. My most serious concern would be the sodium in urine. If the soil doesn't leach salt adequately it could be possible to seriously stunt plant growth. Aside from that, great idea.

I've previously used my own urine on my own garden. It works wonderfully.

Minerals come out of soil, go into plant, you eat plant, you urinate minerals back out makes sense to put them back in the soil to restart the cycle

My abuela would use urine she saved from overnight chamber pots and mix with hose water to water her roses in pots in our backyard fence. The mid 70s. She was born in 1894 in Los Mochis Mx. Those roses lasted until maybe the mid 90s we sold our childhood home after mom passed in 2015.

South Park got it right once again.

Is the urine safe if people are on drugs, prescription or not? How about when people eat the wrong food? Is it always safe? Anybody’s urine?

Been using it on grass for years. Works a treat and gives excellent growth.

Why not? Human solid and liquid waste actually does have use in nature. Pillbugs and the like actually will break both down and use them as food and their waste goes back directly into the soil that can benefit plants. Plus, close to a hundred and ten years ago, we used to all have outhouses. Basically a little building with a bench that had a hole in it that you went in, sat down, did your business, and both the liquid and solid waste portions fell into a pit dug underneath the bench. Once the pit was full, it would be backfilled and the outhouse would be moved to the next pit site on the property.

Wow, so now a quiet day on the farm can smell like a bus station!!!

A family of four can fertilize a garden for a year known fact. One part urine to 10 parts water.

I’m sorry!! But I live in Orlando Florida! Seriously! Think about the amount of pee ALL the theme parks generate!! Let’s CASH! That COW in!!!

This should be done at the municipal level.

My grass dies where the dog pees. Is it just too concentrated to help plants then hurt them?

This is why you need to wash your lettuce three times. 😐

This is some Gross but interesting stuff...There's so much that the FDA doesn't regulate ..including if the tomatoes I'm eating are cage-grown or urine-free...

If we have reached this point. Human Population has reached too high. Balance must be restored. With a planet full of water, there is no freaking reason why anyone should be using urine to water greens. Absolutely insane.

There’s also lots of pharmaceuticals!

One gallon mixed into 8 gallons for a total of 9 gallons to spray.

I solute to these people, they are doing a very important job helping the future of our earth. China had been doing this for thousands of years , I still remember when I was small every morning the collectors coming to every house to collect the human waste and sold them to farmers so farmers can use them in their farm field . China only stopped using this practice very lately past decades, due to the availability of chemical fertilizer.

long overdue

Check out Milorginate out of Milwaukee... treated sewage sludge into fertilizer since 1926.

It works great until a prion disease like chronic wasting disease or mad cow disease pops up in humans.

I live well off the road and have been applying urine directly to the lawn for years.

No explanation about why it is being done? What advantages does it have?

Ironically it was the advent of chemical fertilizers in the “Green revolution” which had us forget this simple and straight forward solution which we used for thousands of years. The good news is, the hardest problems have already been solved, the bad news is we forgot the solutions and need to be retaught how brilliant these approaches were all along.

People have been doing this for some time now. It works! My greens love it! I also use my urine to protect my plants from the deer and in my compost pile.

If you haven’t watched the ending, you’re in for a surprise.

So only we can boiling the urine and use it ? I try with out bacteria come and eat the plant..

I pee in my garden all the time, I just don’t feel like running back to the house.

I love ❤when my puppy does the pee pee dance!

In the USA we usually just make beer out of it

I'd love to see urine depots and Community Libraries throughout the country.

Leave it to Merica to do the right thing after exhausting all other options. Yet still mess it up with pasteurization. What a waste of energy

Qhy not? We will have to learn how to recycle when we begin space colonization in earnest.

What you use for "natural gas"?

Sounds like a great idea ...

I never heard of using “recycled” pee but people always said that pee was good for the land and even human fezes

I wonder how long this “good idea” becomes mandatory?

If the urine isn’t full of pharmaceuticals it’s a great idea! I’ve used my urine as a deer repellent with much success.

This is a great story. I recently performed in a play where a character shared that he used human urine to grow beautiful orchids in Hawaii.

This has been a staple, go-to move in the so-called developing world (particularly most of Asia) for millennia. Other than not removing suspended solids and bacteria as well as other organisms from the urine (and a very big part of the reason most municipalities do not actively pursue this) and apart from the fact that more often than not, your food will smell and taste like urine (a problem that occurs with the application of too much liquid gold and the direct consumption of crops grown with it), it is not a particularly bad move from an environmental/resources standpoint. Just understand that you will not replace all chemical fertilizers with this (you will not even make a dent in it via replacement/substitution). To cut down on the urinary smell (and the piece is lying here: depending on what the person donating the urine eats, urine will have different smells), simply grow an intermediary crop (ideally on fallow land), harvest it, and apply it as fertilizer for the crop of interest, or simply use it to grow feed for animals. In sum, this is not a new idea; it's just "newly discovered", again, by Westerners. This is an old idea that cycles in and out of fashion in the developed world every twenty years or so, along the re-use of night soil (AKA- poop or treated sewage). And it always falls short.

Awesome💛

😂❤ this takes me back to 9 grade chemistry when I was talking with my teacher about how they made gunpowder back in the day😂 don't try it at home you will get swatted

I love how the example for France was just a guy peeing in an outdoor toilet in the middle of the street.. Talk about the epitome of privacy!

If you pee on it ,….”it” will grow !

What is a manure pile ? People used to sell their pee to the tanner . I’ve been using pee fertilizer for years . Hope I run into some drug effects from the city sewerage compost . Do people know nothing ?

Has any research been done as to what hormones (birth control etc.) and medications are passed through the body and what all is left in the urine that we are putting on the plants we eat and what effects they have on the food we eat? Just a thought. P. S. - Get that journalist some makeup and better lighting or something, I was kind of scared when I first saw her.

Are the midications taken by people are not past on to the earth and plants.

Pee jokes are constant 😂😂

We should pee on the Moon!! 🌙

Pee cycling. Sounds like something I could get behind.

lol, this is one of the reasons why some countries had open defecation, that was meant for the soil because toilets were either expensive or inaccessible.

It definitely smells.

It's got what plants crave.

Nitrogen.

The most useful thing I did today was create fertilizer

These minerals from human waste should be recovered at all sewage treatment plants.

When I was in Vietnam (circa 1979), the elementary school in my town would collect urine from the class, dilute it, then water their class veggie garden. Either it was school policy or Ms Pham just needed to fulfill a sick fetish and should be kept far away from children. I'm now a 52 year old Californian and my bladder and the makers of Bud Light provide urea directly to my plants the old fashion way, and undiluted. I've found certain species tolerate the salts better--potted Asian pears are highly sensitive. Kumquats do best, but non my established potted citrus (I have over 20) get salt burn unless I overdo it. Veggies tend to do well. Potted fig trees also do well (I have over 40). My very young citrus also burn easily (duh). Either way, practice common sense--never just go full bore on one plant, but spread the love each time to different pots and avoid full strength urine on your plants when they're dry or heat stressed (I badly burned my Satsuma Mandarin this way). Hope this helps those hoping to get started.

There's too many pharmaceutical drugs that can't be filtered out.

5 gallons a month. Lol I fill a 5 gallon every 2 days

Fertilizer is pee ,…so why aren’t we pee ing on our 🌹 and vegetables 🥕!! . Imagine every morning driving by your neighbor watching him l fertilizer his garden!! ,…the Swiss Chard’s looking 👀 a bit ,..wilted ,..go pee on it!! LOL!

See a tree 🌳 pee a tree 🚿 😂

4:55 guy in the lab coat is hot hot hot! 🫡🚒

👏👏👏

"Don't pay the dunnyman"(infamous parody folksong)..... More enterprising folk might try electrolysis on urine but shockingly folk often think they are taking the p.😺

So Waterworld guy was right!

Ewwwwwwwwwwww.

We call it "doing a Munro" after Bert Munro (the film "The World's Fastest Indian" was based on his life). He peed on the lemon tree every morning. Ditto. For a while. But I wouldn't do it on leafy veg.

Brawndo...it's what plants crave

Urigating... it's right. THERE!!!

*"When we tell people about it, they're mostly **-confused-** **_repulsed."_** (ftfy)*

Pee jokes are streamlined

The methods of dealing with human waste in developed nations is as idiotic as it is wasteful. Instead of using potable water to flush our "business" into a vast, complex and expensive sewage treatment system, we could divert water from non-sanitary sources (sinks, showers, washing machines) for use in toilet flushing and irrigation. Traditional toilets could be replaced with urine-separating toilets. The collected waste (both liquid and solid) is then used as fertilizer. As shown in this piece, liquid waste can be applied ground applied. In fact, human urine is so rich with vital nutrients that it may even have to be diluted so as to avoid burning the roots of certain plants. Beyond this, human feces can be composted then used as fertilizer in as little as 120 days when lime is added, or from 6 months to 2 years when lime isn't added. Note that this is when used for vegetable fertilization. Humanure can be used as fertilizer for plants such as fruit trees in even less time. Using potable water for toilet flushing and irrigation is wasteful, and the cost and sizeable carbon footprint of synthetic fertilizers can be largely avoided when substituted with humanure. Lastly, the day is coming when the effluent of municipal wastewater treatment facilities will be returned to the drinking water supply, rather than be released to watersheds.

It does have an odor....If It doesn't How can there be any nutrients.... LOL 😆😊

The Chelsea gardens has bales of straw for men to pee on.

Your next waterparks.

Hold up. I was always told human waste was the worst fertilizer known to man. Cuz we use all the valued nutrients out of it and especially our solid waste was terrible for fertilizer. I was told this by my grandfather who was a 5 generation farmer.