Friday, March 27, 2009

urine as fertilizer - some links

Alert reader (despite being sleep-deprived) Brian Thomas - baker, blacksmith, and subsistence farmer - wrote me saying that he had heard that the nitrogen in human urine might not be in an accessible form for plants. To help us all out on this, I picked up some links to articles. I hope I can get the links to work for you. And if anyone knows a better way to supply links other than having to type each character in by hand PLEASE let me know. Cutting and pasting doesn't seem to work with this blog.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801028.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Using+Human-Urine-As-A-Liquid-Fertilizer&id=392596

Brian also said that he fills his five-gallon bucket one-third full with wood shavings or scrap hay and then just adds the bucket to his regular compost. I noticed one article advised to never let the urine get more than 24 hours old unless you're just going to use it to get the temperature up in your compost heat. In the Washington Post article, note the cabbage growing capacity of just one person's piss. Cool.

And aren't we all glad I didn't match the color of this post to the color of hot urine?

For more info google "urine fertilizer".

4 comments:

  1. Sometimes the keyboard commands work for cutting and pasting. Highlight the url in the browser window and press Ctrl + C, then place the cursor where you want to paste and press Ctrl + V:
    www.soundclick.com/jayseeley
    That's what I did above and it worked in the post a comment box.
    Jay

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  2. yeah, what jay said. (ctrl c is actually copy, which might a difference in your favor for some mysterious unknown reason)

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  3. i find it extremely amusing that the washington post article finds it necessary to recommend an "eco toilet" to collect the urine...cuz you can't just pee in a jar/bucket/etc...you need a specialized toilet to do it right!

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  4. I'm not sure why human urine would be so very uncommon. Seems pretty natural. It reminds me of Dune, where they wore the suits in the desert that turned human urine into drinkable water. You can have my urine any day!
    Tracie

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