SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
It's high summer in Europe.
The Guardian newspaper reports on a new initiative in the Danish musical epicentre of Roskilde to make festivalgoers aware of the intimate link between them and their beer: the festival organization coined a new word "beercycling" which means nothing more than recycling the valuable nitrates from music lovers' urine through a near-by barley field, and then transmogrifying said barley into golden mjød (actually pilsner beer in the current project).
According to the newspaper, the Roskilde festival (established æons ago in the hippy era) has a reputation for its ecological awareness.
Original Submission
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
This login session: $13.76, but for you $11.88.
(Score: 3, Informative) by anubi on Saturday July 04 2015, @06:30AM
I note the article specifically referred to urine.
From what I have seen, our intestinal tract removes damned near everything of use and puts it in the bloodstream. The kidneys then remove the excess minerals and products of metabolism and send it out. The end product of protein metabolism is Urea... (NH2)2CO. You can even buy this as a powder in farm supply stores. Extremely valuable source of nitrogen, which has a very high bio-availability to plants.
Urine also has all the surpluses of all the minerals you ate and did not use. Potassium. Phosphorous. And all the other goodies that was in your meal.
Urine, by its very nature, is sterile unless you have a urinary tract infection. It was once part of your blood.
Now, as far as "number two" goes, put it in the loo. Its mostly dead bacteria and things that would not absorb anyway. Its nasty stuff. Smells to all high heaven, messy, and can easily transmit diseases. Best send that down to a treatment plant specialized to decompose the stuff.
I stand by them... I can certainly see nothing wrong with urine as a fertilizer, but I flat will have nothing to do with the other stuff that belongs in the loo.
For the exact same reasons other soylenters are submitting as well.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:56PM
Peecycling
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140202-peecycling-urine-human-waste-compost-fertilizer/ [nationalgeographic.com]
Pour your pee into a compost pile/composting barrel and let it all do its thing.
Then put on your garden in the fall and let it sit all winter.
Gonna do this this fall (made my own compost tumbler from a pickle barrel (love that pickle barrel smell)). Finally, a use for all my beer pee.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday July 05 2015, @04:37AM
I guess you noticed how fast dead plant matter "rots" when peed on?
A mound of grass clippings, peed on, becomes mulch much faster than one just watered. Alternatively, any meat or other protein containing scraps work as well.
its the same reason pigeons in wood rafters are such bad news. Pigeon poo rots wood big-time.
You supplied the missing element so needed by life. Nitrogen. To make protein with. Proteins are made of chains of amino acids... each one has at an amino (NH2) group and a COOH group, and they all tiggy-tag together almost like tinker toys, all neatly folding when assembled to make the desired building block.
It seems such a waste to me to flush the stuff.
Anecdote: I came home one night and caught one of my neighbor's visitors pissing on my block fence, creating a puddle on the sidewalk. I admonished him and asked him to please use the bush for that. The dogs use it all the time, and it won't puddle for others to step in. It will go into the ground where hungry bacteria will begin breaking it apart seconds after he dispenses it. It will be disassembled long before it can make a stink. He seemed surprised that I actually did not mind him pissing in the bush. But the sidewalk, no... no-one wants to step in a puddle of piss. It will ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]