Noe-Hays & Nace | Reclaiming Nutrients from Human Urine
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- Опубликовано: 2 апр 2015
- Reclaiming nutrients from human urine - Results from applied research at the nation’s first urine recycling program
Human urine is the leading source of nutrient pollution and eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems throughout many densely populated watersheds. The conventional approach of applying end-of-pipe nutrient removal technologies has proven impractical or unaffordable in many communities, but a radically different strategy may provide an alternate solution.
Since 2012, the Rich Earth Institute has been operating the nation’s first community-scale urine recycling program. Using waterless urinals and source-separating toilets, over 8,000 gallons of urine has been diverted from the wastewater stream and processed into fertilizer for local farms. As the project has scaled up, the Institute has developed and tested an array of innovative methods and technologies for the collection, transport, treatment, and application of urine fertilizer.
Two important areas of investigation relating to the agricultural use of urine-based fertilizers concern pathogens and residual pharmaceuticals. The Rich Earth Institute is proud to be a collaborating partner in the University of Michigan’s two-year study into the persistence of pharmaceuticals and biological contaminants in crop tissues, soil, and groundwater.
The capture and reuse of urine as fertilizer is an ancient idea, but as communities with limited budgets struggle to meet tightening wastewater permit requirements, this forgotten strategy is gaining new relevance as a tool for environmental protection. This talk will explore the physical, social, and ecological interactions that are currently in play at the intersection of sanitation and agriculture.
Sponsoring Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Special Lecture Series: EWRE Seminar
Speaker Bios:
Abraham Noe-Hays has been working with dry sanitation systems since 1990. He holds a B.A. in Human Ecology-with concentrations in agroecology and compost science-from the College of the Atlantic, where his interest in recycling human manure led to an internship at Woods End Research Laboratory and his thesis project, “An Experiment in Thermophilic Composting Toilet Design.” He has operated Full Circle Compost Consulting since 2001, providing complete design, manufacture, and maintenance services to individuals and institutions with dry toilet systems. He is also the eco-sanitation expert for Sustainable Harvest International, and has helped SHI initiate urine-diversion projects in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Belize. In addition to hands-on dry sanitation work, Abraham gives lectures and leads workshops at conferences and schools, and writes articles on the topic.
Kim Nace holds an M.A. in International Administration from World Learning and an M.A. in Educational Leadership from Keene State College. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana and has taught children of all ages. She coordinated research funded by the MacArthur Foundation and later served as an Elementary School Principal - at Central School in rural Vermont and the American International School in Chennai, India. She has been passionate about sustainable sanitation alternatives ever since creating an educational video about composing toilets for her 1989 master’s thesis project, along with her husband, Mike Earley. Now she is pleased to again be engaging others in the possibilities and practicalities of human manure recycling at the Rich Earth Institute. Kim and her family use a urine diverting composting toilet.
Speaker Website(s): richearthinstitute.org 
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Bravo! Excellent work Michigan! Respect to the efforts! It's beautiful seeing people with SOLUTIONs to HELP the planet!
Too Crunk 9
Very informative and I am going to experiment with this. Greetings from Sri Lanka!
Very informative thanks.
Very interesting that urine has around twice the dry mass of faeces (output from one person).
Thank you guys for Sharing your very Informative video!
this is excellent - this should be nationalised immediately as a priority - what a massive resource!
if only we could integrate some way of collecting pee free of detergents guaranteed, so that we could harness the nutrients for agriculture, but also relieve the enormous problem from our gross water treatment - lol - gross as opposed to net lol - adding urine to a compost pile can be a great accelerator :) we should be harnessing all this stuff, we have ALL the science you could ask for we can fly in space taxfree etc cmon, let's set a mandate that we get real and get in harmony and clean up a lil bit? we are the cleanup generation it would seem so, in love and warnth and thanks for listening - there's a lot of us - never feel alone :) all hail the pee! Onelove
Great stuff!
Thank you for taking your time and effort to this study.
Would be great for our environment if somehow we can bring this technique and knowledge in to real farming life.
In Vietnam when I was a child I have seen my grand-grand parents collected the P and fertilised their garden. It work so well in small size farming. And they have been doing that for decades without any studies but experience.
great video and th only way forward
Thank you very much! When I was a child, most farmers I saw were using human waste to fertilize their fields. The practice was undeveloped and vilified by western scientists, laughed at by the people in the west ....... after so many years, after the world is totally messed up. We are finally reverting back. Now the same scientists are saying the opposite. Hope we still have time to save the earth and the ocean from turning into a big cess pool. Flush toilets is a wasteful invention, it really needs a make over to be more sustainable. If everyone one earth flushes, we will be in trouble. Thanks for those who are still using dry toilets.
My concern would be using the urine of people taking medication and what affect it may have on plants.
Hello! I’m a natural farmer. I follow the Korean/Jadam organic farming methods. Your video was posted five years ago. Kudos to you for doing this! Are there any updates? And have you tried sampling on FRESH urine mixed with maybe ten or fifteen parts of water and distributed directly to the plants? Would the be any harmful pathogens that would go to the plants if it’s not treated? Thank you! God bless!
More up-to-date information can be found here: richearthinstitute.org/
We need solutions for urban areas now.
Right now!
The homeless are peeing everywhere but where human waste is supposed to go. We need a way to deal with this as well as the common person's apartment waste who may or may not have a garden. When we take care of this, a major hurdle to taking care of homeless folks will have been removed.
Someone shared his experience to produce urea crystal from urine. Just allow urine to dry out under the sun in open tray.
The simplest is just dilute urine and water directly.
What about the sodium content of the urine?
the interesting thing is that it may be cheaper both in initial infrastructure investment and ongoing cost to collect urine & faeces as solid waste in the same way we do garbage as opposed to sending it down a sewer. Currently in the US, older cities are faced with multi-billion $$$ mandates from the federal government to renovate their decrepit waste water and sewer systems. Even with maintaining a sewer type disposal system we should be able to reduce water use for this purpose by an order of magnitude even over current state of the art 3-5 liter/flush toilets/urinals by the simple expediency of going to zero water for urine toilets and urinals. This would reduce the necessary size of the sewage system and the treatment system at the end not to mention the saving in water pipes to supply water to urinals in men's bathrooms.
why the studies are always around INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS rather than Home Gardens? Every research should incorporate domestic premises ...especially this one, being able to to solve this problem at its source (Home) is less polluting than waiting for it to reach the end of its route
+John Malkovich that's true but not everyone can use the home garden solution because we don't all have home gardens i.e. those of us who live in densely populated cities. Where you have large cities waste is being produced at an industrial scale so it's disposal is always going to look like a factory. I think *when* (because we must) we get to systems like this where we are only sending our actual body wastes off to be treated (rather than diluting it with huge volumes of potable water) you are talking about reducing it's volume by 10 or even 100 fold. The sewage treatment plant will then be that much smaller and the waste will go our fields rather than our rivers.
+Clifford Bradford
That is not a reason not to do it. That is a problem to solve ON THE WAY TO DOING IT.
If you know so much about it, you may want to be on the PROBLEM SOLVING committee.
Urban waste disposal is a solvable problem. Humans are problem solvers. Let's get on with it.
I think its funny that if you look at history, this stuff was harvested and done similarly about a thousand years ago. Your just Rediscovering lost knowledge.
Also look at Vietnam and Korea, they have been doing this same thing for a very long time.
Human urine and feces needs more research.
The City of Milwaukee recycles human waste into a mass produced fertilizer called Milorganite... which is sold as fertilizer all over the world.
Joe Rogan Experience #1388 - Louie Psihoyos
HAPPY HOMESTEAD: Human Manure & Urine = Personal Piss+Private Pee: Myself material matter manured, making-manufacturing macro-micro multi-minerals. Officially owned organic organism’s food fertilizer. Recycling self-sustenance+ substance sufficiency x sustaining success = she-e-it savior salvation sure savings = $$$