The typical person generates a fair amount of bodily waste over the course of a year. 50 kilograms of excrement and around 500 kilograms (more than 1,110 pounds) of urine. When you multiply that by over 8 billion people, you have huge mountain ranges of human poop and rivers of pee. However, the vast bulk of it gets thrown away. Several initiatives are now working to change that.
In one such initiative, wheat crops are responding well to urine-based fertilizer treatments at the Laboratoire Eau Environnement et Systemes Urbains (Leesu) west of Paris. Farmers have discovered that the yield is similar to that obtained using synthetic fertilizers, which are either phosphate-based or generated using natural gas, a fossil fuel that is highly polluting.
Food produced with the help of human poop or even urine can be difficult to sell
Additionally, waste-based fertilizers offer organic matter that enhances soil in addition to having a smaller carbon footprint.
However, food produced with the help of human feces or even urine can be difficult to sell, no matter how excellent our processed flushables can be for the environment. Are we being too emotional?
Ancient cultures were aware of the reality of human waste. They realized that nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium—nutrients found in our urine and excreta—helped plants thrive.
Science journalist Lina Zeldovich describes life in Japan in the 1600s to 1800s in her book “The Other Dark Matter,” when people traded in shimogoe, or “night soil,” which was turned into manure and applied to less fertile rocky terrain.
While in Mesoamerica the floating chinampa gardens of the Aztec age were heavily supplied with dung, in China waste produced by wealthier people was more expensive to buy on the grounds that a more nutrient-rich diet would result in a better product.
However, things started to alter in the 19th century. Zeldovich claimed that synthetic fertilizers and sophisticated wastewater systems had disturbed nature’s cyclical pattern.
“When we started farming and living in cities, we created this really interesting problem,” she said. “We grow food in certain places, then we transport and consume that food in other places.”
As a result, nutrients are not returned to neighboring fields but rather wind up in wastewater treatment facilities or nearby bodies of water.
And if fertilizers wind up encouraging algal blooms in our lakes and rivers, endangering fish and other aquatic life, that could be bad news. For instance, it’s a major issue on the US mainland, where around 65% of all estuaries and coastal waters in the lower 48 states are impacted by nitrogen-rich fertilizers that come from shoddy septic systems and fertilizers that run off farmlands.
A community program in the US state of Vermont resulted in 180 persons donating their urine for farming in 2021
There are other instances of our waste being put to good use besides the trials outside of Paris. From North America to Africa, similar projects, including ones with a feces focus, are in operation.
A community program operated by the Rich Earth Institute, a research institution in the US state of Vermont, resulted in 180 persons donating their urine for farming in 2021.
By producing cooking and industrial fuel from solid waste in Kenya, the start-up Sanivation goes above and beyond the traditional practice of using charcoal made from felled trees. The manufacturing, milk processing, and textile sectors are among its clients.
The business claims that since 2018, it has sold 2,000 tons of its burnable dung pellets.
Similar to this, Sanitation 360, a Swedish business, has devised a method for turning urine into pellets in an effort to promote a circular economy for waste from people.
According to studies, if poop fertilizer isn’t correctly handled, individuals may consume dangerous worms
According to research, there are hurdles related to culture and psychology that prevent more people from recycling their bodily waste.
For instance, fecophobia, or the dread of solid human excrement, is very popular in Ghana, where many people believe that using it to grow food is unclean. According to one study, however, the unfavorable view of feces-based fertilizer is greatly reduced once people are aware of how it is handled and processed.
Another obstacle is the potential health risks of fertilizer made from trash. People believe bodily waste to be unhealthy, according to researchers, who point out that excrement in particular carries dangerous bacteria. According to studies, if poop fertilizer isn’t correctly handled, individuals may consume dangerous worms.
Co-founder of the Swiss compost toilet company Kompotoi, Jojo Casanova-Linder, gives a clear explanation of how poop is processed. Compost begins to form after solids are exposed to high heat, which destroys microorganisms. Contrarily, liquids are distilled into concentrates that can be applied straight or diluted with water.
It will take some time for the approach to gain widespread acceptance, according to Casanova-Linder. About 300 toilet units have so far been sold by his business, mostly in Switzerland. “The question is how long we can afford to [poop] in clean drinking water and not recover the resources.”