Fertilizing With Urine
If you have read many of my other articles, you would know by now that I always seek to create multiple win scenarios as I believe that this is the most effective way to deal with problems.
Well, as you will see, fertilizing with urine is at least a win win win decision. But first let's take a clinical look at urine.
Unless you are sick, when urine exits your body it is essentially sterile. Don't take my word for it . . .read this. Urine is quite harmless, certainly far more so than the manures you use on your garden, or even than the soil itself. Now, if collected and left uncovered, urine does make an ideal breeding ground for bacteria, primarily because of the nutrients it contains. It is these nutrients that we are wanting to give our attention to, and when handled properly, urine makes an outstanding fertilizer..
Our first WIN is that urine is a nearly complete fertilizer containing significant quantities of NPK (approx. 12 - 1 - 3) as well as many minerals and trace nutrients. Numerous experiments and careful study has found that urine is comparable to commercial fertilizers and in some ways more readily taken up by plants. Two of the most notable studies are where urine was used to fertilize cabbages {read more . . . }, and where urine and wood ash were used to fertilize tomatoes {read more . . }. It has been determined that on average, one person produces enough urine in a year to fertilize 1/10th of an acre of land for crop production. Or in other words, every ten people produce enough urine to fertilize an acre of land.
Our second WIN is that if we collect our urine, we will not be wasting water to flush this valuable fertilizer down the toilet. Since almost none of the homes in the US have urinals, enough water to flush away a bowel movement (with paper) is wasted every time we urinate. This amounts to billions of gallons of water wasted every day!
Our third WIN has to do with the fact that about 70% to 80% of the nitrogen, as well as nearly half of the phosphorous found in our residential waste water comes from the urine that is flushed down our toilets. What this means is that by collecting our urine to use as a fertilizer, we would dramatically lower the cost of treating our waste water while significantly lowering the amount of nutrients entering our rivers and streams since many waste water treatment systems do not remove all of the nutrients from the water. It is estimated that the cost of treating waste water would be reduced by at least 30% if urine was not present. {Read more . . .}
Our fourth WIN . . . yes there is a fourth, and it also relates to how you can dispose of your urine to utilize it as a fertilizer. Because of it's high nitrogen content and of course its liquid state, urine is an excellent component to add to high carbon compost materials such as leaves or wood chips. An indoor urinal can be allowed to drain into a pile of leaves or wood chips without giving off any odor provided it drains below the top layer of material.
Urine must be diluted with about ten parts water if used directly in the garden because it is so rich in nutrients. It is also recommended that you distribute it at the base of the plants rather than spraying it on the leaves. Urine is an excellent fertilizer that can also be useful in producing high quality compost and by collecting it we lower the cost of treating our waste water while lowering our consumption of fresh water.
Have any thoughts or comments? I'd love to hear from you . . .
