Did you know that 98% of the nitrogen, 68% of the phosphorus and 85% of the potassium in your urine can be reclaimed? I guess you're asking why this is important :).
Phosphorus is an essential component in all forms of life - it forms part of the structural framework of DNA and RNA molecules. It's used in a variety of industries, but mostly as an important (and very much abused) agricultural fertilizer.
It appears that as a result of the consumption of phosporus for agriculture over the last 100 years or so, the world is heading for a supply crunch. According to Associate Professor Cynthia Mitchell from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, the world's deposits of phosphorus will be depleted in about 50 years.
The solution - our pee! It seems that we excrete around a hundred gallons of the stuff each per year and it's one of the most concentrated sources of phosphorus.
I remember stories from my father regarding his father and others using urine to water tomatos whilst interred in a prisoner of war camp in World War II. Those tomatos provided much needed vitamins for the men and probably helped some survive their time of incarceration given the horrible conditions.
So, how do the boffins propose collecting this urine? Through urine separating toilets - and they have been on the market for quite a while.
Urine separating toilets have a bowl in the front for urine, with umm, the other bits going to the rear. The bowl in front flushes to a separate storage tank.
Urine reclamation is still only occurring on a small scale, but rapidly gaining popularity in Europe. In the Municipality of Tanum, Sweden, there are farmers who collect the storage tanks of urine for spreading on their farmlands. After being filled, the containers are sealed and left to stand for the next six months to reduce any bacteria and viruses. Urine is generally pretty sterile, but it can pick up nasty bugs from the surrounding skin when being expelled.
Learn more about what's being termed pee-cycling and the enterprising farming folk at Tanum.
