https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/09/recycling-animal-and...
A related article from Low-Tech Magazine, published in 2010.
Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
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Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
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Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#13This is a great article. I didn't know about the urine-trap toilet (discussed about half-way through). It's a very elegant idea that adds very little complexity to the conventional toilet. Dare I say a solution that finally isn't full of sh*t?
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#14> According to Simha’s estimates, humans produce enough urine to replace about one-quarter of current nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers worldwide They have got to be taking the piss. So worth the downvotes.
… but seriously, this astonished me. Would love to see the rough calculation behind this. My biochemistry isn’t nearly good enough to begin to replicate this estimate.
Regardless of the biochem possibilities I wonder about the engineering realities required to collect, isolate, purify, and distribute the urea and other nitrogen rich compounds from the waste stream.
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#15> That’s in part because urine is rich in nutrients that, instead of polluting water bodies, could go towards fertilizing crops or feed into industrial processes.
Huh? We're already producing way too much fertilizer from farm animals, which leads to the situation that countries like the Netherlands [1] and Germany [2] experience a massive oversupply of dung that has to be shipped sometimes hundreds of kilometers because otherwise the fields near the dung sources get way too much nutrients or the dung runoff fucks up river ecosystems.
How about using what we actually have right now in abundance instead of building highly complex systems designed to capture tiny amounts of human urine?!
[1]: https://www.noord360.eu/2021/02/10/guelletourismus-warum-deu...
[2]: https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/deutschland/drecksgeschae...
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#16Wouldn't this also mitigate the problem of residual pharmaceuticals in wastewater, at least for aquatic life? The article doesn't say.
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#17> According to Simha’s estimates, humans produce enough urine to replace about one-quarter of current nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers worldwide They have got to be taking the piss. So worth the downvotes.
… but seriously, this astonished me. Would love to see the rough calculation behind this. My biochemistry isn’t nearly good enough to begin to replicate this estimate.
On a theoretical level, all these fertilizers get added just so the soil doesn't get depleted by what gets driven away to the field and eaten by city-dwelling humans, so it kind of makes sense that they get delivered to our bodies and then expelled.
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#18> That’s in part because urine is rich in nutrients that, instead of polluting water bodies, could go towards fertilizing crops or feed into industrial processes. Huh? We're already producing way too much fertilizer from farm animals, which leads to the situation that countries like the Netherlands [1] and Germany [2] experience a massive oversupply of dung that has to be shipped sometimes hundreds of kilometers beca…
NPR Planet Money Episode[1] has interesting details around Phosphorous mines in Morocco,
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#19> According to Simha’s estimates, humans produce enough urine to replace about one-quarter of current nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers worldwide They have got to be taking the piss. So worth the downvotes.
> They have got to be taking the piss.
The origin of this phrase (I am certain you know and merely detailing for others) is literally in the once-financially-viable business of collecting urine (from public houses, outdoor toilets, and even private houses) because it was a valuable source of ammonia before the invention of the (from memory, Haber-Bosch?) process for its industrial production.
Re: Separating urine from sewage could mitigate some environmental problems
#20Separating urine from the rest of sewage could mitigate some difficult environmental problems, but there are big obstacles to radically re-engineering one of the most basic aspects of life.
I briefly had a project called Pee on a Tree that got mocked and got no traction. This is why Earth is doomed: The simple solutions are derided while people overcomplicate things that don't have to be complicated.
Hoomans: Y'all fools deserve your fate and I shall say so in my dissertation for my degree in Human Studies when I get back to Vulcan.