Every water issue is also a carbon issue. We are running short of potable water and all the drinking water currently in the system has been purified at the cost of carbon dioxide released into the air. A detailed analysis is available for those interested in crunching numbers.
So, why are we still throwing perfectly good water away just to remove our urine?
Some systems are already underway to recover and recycle urine on a civic scale. Some places in Sweden are already doing it. Civic systems will be essential for people in towns and cities where composting on an individual basis is not practical.
As one Swedish researcher noted, "Don't mix what God separates". Poop without a lot of water or urine makes for " richer sludge and produces more methane, which can be turned into gas or electricity".
People with composting toilets find that separating the two streams also makes it easier to compost the feces.
An undervalued part of urine, in addition to its nitrogen, is its phosphorus. We are approaching peak phosphorus.
In the meanwhile, is there anything you as an individual can do to save this nitrogen and phosphorus and spare the burden on the water systems?
Yes! If you have a garden or compost heap, you can pee-cycle. Five top uses for pee if you are doing it at home:
- Compost accelerator
- Hay bale conditioner
- On top of deep mulches
- Diluted for crops or flowers (dilute 10:1 and apply at roots every two weeks or so)
- Gorgeous asparagus
If asparagus makes your pee smell funny, take revenge and pee on your asparagus! Nutrient hungry, deep rooted, perennial and salt-tolerant, asparagus might be the ideal crop to fertilize with pee. If you grow your asparagus under a thick layer of carbonaceous mulch, like straw or wood chips, use the Direct Mulch Direct Application technique, otherwise dilute 2:1 if your asparagus is in the sandy soil it prefers, or 4:1 in heavier soil. Apply throughout the growing season, along with a good source of potassium, like bone meal, in the early spring.
How good a fertilizer is pee?
Typical Western Diet pee has an NPK ratio of about 11-1-2. In comparison, blood meal is 12-2-1 and cottonseed meal is 7-2-2.
And you can do your own math on the relative costs of blood meal, cottonseed meal and pee.
How safe a fertilizer is Pee?
In a healthy person, urine is sterile. In someone with decent hygiene and wiping technique, it should more-or-less stay that way as it leaves the body. Cross contamination with fecal matter (health risk!) can be a concern, so perfect your front-to-back TP technique if you are going to pee-cycle.
Isn’t pee gross?
Anyone who has used cow manure or chicken manure on a garden should have no qualms about using the much less microbial pee that is readily available.
Family confessions: Tall Papa has been using :ahem: domestic compost accelerator for several years. It is so discreet that I didn’t even know for the first year. It’s obviously easier for men to collect their pee than for women. This anatomic challenge was addressed recently by a Swedish organic gardener, who designed what must be the world’s most lovely and functional chamber pot. Take a look at her story: Guldkannan towa website in English
An idyllic introduction to the Towa in Sweden:
And a chipper Brit chatting about the Towa at the Chelsea flower show:
I may have to order a Towa.