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Can pee help feed the world?
AFP via Breitbart ^ | 2 May 2022

Posted on 05/02/2022 4:27:06 AM PDT by GonzoII

“Go pee on the rhubarb!”

Engineer Fabien Esculier has never forgotten his grandmother’s unconventional approach to gardening — in fact, it has inspired his career. Human urine may seem like a crude way of fertilising plants in the era of industrial agriculture, but as researchers look for ways to reduce reliance on chemicals and cut environmental pollution, some are growing increasingly interested in the potential of pee.

Plants need nutrients — nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium — and we ingest these through food, before “excreting them, mostly through urine”, said Esculier, who runs the OCAPI research programme in France looking at food systems and human waste management.

This presents an opportunity, scientists think.

Fertilisers using synthetic nitrogen, in use for around a century, have helped drive up yields and boost agricultural production to feed a growing human population.

But when they are used in large quantities, they make their way into river systems and other waterways, causing choking blooms of algae that can kill fish and other aquatic life....


(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Agriculture; Chit/Chat; Food; Gardening
KEYWORDS: fertiliser; fertilizer; pee
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To: oldasrocks

“Anyone on welfare is given the collection job.”

Good luck on getting the EBT crowd to get out of their Cadillac Escalades, dripping with gold chains, to collect the pee/poop. They’re too busy using our money for filet mignon, prime rib, lobster, champagne and huge ‘blunts’.


21 posted on 05/02/2022 6:06:00 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: GonzoII

Urea has been a known fertilizer for decades.

https://www.fertilizer-machine.com/solution/urea-fertilizer.html


22 posted on 05/02/2022 6:26:28 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Three more days and out of FB jail for the third time this year! I'm on a roll!)
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To: GonzoII

It sounds gross but waste facilities already harvest lots of minerals from piss and poop. If we can use/recycle it more efficiently, then by all means do so.


23 posted on 05/02/2022 6:26:34 AM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: bigfootbob

One of the reasons the Chinese have such a problem with outbreaks of various diseases is that they use human excrement on their fields.

There’s actually been a couple of recent studies that indicate that Covid is transmitted by the fecal-oral route. Apparently bat viruses are transmitted this way and there is ample evidence of it being spread to other susceptible species through bat feces, and then on through the feces of these other animals, including humans.

In other words, the only worthwhile thing they told us to do was that we should wash our hands frequently and not touch our faces.


24 posted on 05/02/2022 6:28:19 AM PDT by livius
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To: God luvs America

I pee on my compost pile.


25 posted on 05/02/2022 6:33:59 AM PDT by waterhill (Resist)
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To: GonzoII

“Go pee on the rhubarb!”


True freedom is peeing without aiming. This sounds like aiming.

But any rural kid knows this means peeing around the rhubarb. Not on it. The soil and organism will filtrate.


26 posted on 05/02/2022 6:36:12 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: GonzoII

https://www.wikihow.com/Urinate-Outside-Discreetly

It has pictures for the illiterate.


27 posted on 05/02/2022 6:37:28 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: null and void

28 posted on 05/02/2022 6:41:08 AM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page help save my beloved dog's life. https://www.givesendgo.com/G2FUF)
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To: D Rider

Filled with vibrant color - that prob smelled pretty funny.


29 posted on 05/02/2022 6:42:16 AM PDT by Scarlett156 (On the way to #ScientologyPause we enacted #DisneyPause. A thing of beauty. You're welcome.)
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To: PeterPrinciple

/laughs in hillbilly


30 posted on 05/02/2022 6:44:11 AM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page help save my beloved dog's life. https://www.givesendgo.com/G2FUF)
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To: GonzoII

As in Nancy Pelousi’s pee-pole?


31 posted on 05/02/2022 6:48:07 AM PDT by RckyRaCoCo (Please Pray For My Brother Ken.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Urea is also used in skin cream, cosmetics, and DEF.


32 posted on 05/02/2022 6:48:35 AM PDT by kaktuskid
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To: GonzoII

Does anybody remember that Penn and Teller show “Bu11sh1t”...? They made fun of things like recycling and Christians. (They never ridiculed Islam or Scientology, though! Like, NEVER.)

There was one episode where they spent time ridiculing people who think the bathroom has “germs” in it. “Urine is not bad for you! Germs don’t grow in it.” The idea is that we’re so hung up on cleanliness, haha, what a joke.

In fact lots of molds, bacteria, and other crazy things flourish in pee and keeping containers of human pee around is a pretty stupid idea.

Yes, cattle p1ss is a main ingredient in a lot of fertilizers and of course all those old women have to take their pregnant mare urine pills every day so they can keep having periods (and hot flashes) into their 70s, whee. (Who doesn’t like hot flashes? It always makes me feel SO WOMANLY when I break out in a sweat entering an air-conditioned convenience store!)

So, yeah - urine can be useful. But saving your own urine for any reason besides “my doctor told me to” is a bad idea. (And if your doctor wants more than a small cup of your pee, you might want to find another doctor.)

It’s like our libwad overlords are just trying to see how far we can be pushed again.

In the “Bu11sh1t” show they DID do a recycling experiment with some folks in San Francisco that included finding out whether they would be ok with saving used toilet paper for recycling. About half the folks in the experiment were ok with it.

You know, human ingenuity is a great thing, but there’s no historical time when our ingenuity was any stronger than it is now. I’m pretty sure that if there was a practical use for human pee, it would have been discovered by now.

Of course, everyone into gardening knows what “night soil” is. The French have been using human poop to grow outrageously fine vegetables for centuries. But they’re, you know, French. They get used to bad smells and being sick all the time at an early age.


33 posted on 05/02/2022 6:57:17 AM PDT by Scarlett156 (On the way to #ScientologyPause we enacted #DisneyPause. A thing of beauty. You're welcome.)
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To: GonzoII
Mighty oaks from little squirts grow!

34 posted on 05/02/2022 7:04:14 AM PDT by Bobalu (Some people are psychopaths and the left is their natural home)
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To: God luvs America

I do also. But I can’t get my wife to do it too.


35 posted on 05/02/2022 7:27:13 AM PDT by Portcall24
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

The Romans discovered an effective stain-remover: human urine with its high ammonia content. Urine-based cleaning agents, euphemistically known as ‘chamber lye’, were used well into the 19th century.

https://www.countrylife.co.uk/comment-opinion/curious-questions-why-did-people-used-to-wash-clothes-in-urine-217861


36 posted on 05/02/2022 8:10:37 AM PDT by Paperpusher (Gal 5:15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.)
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To: Portcall24

LOL- my wife cringed when she heard what i was doing. But she loves the flowers!!!


37 posted on 05/02/2022 8:25:23 AM PDT by God luvs America (63.5 million pay no income tax and vote for DemoKrats...)
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To: GonzoII

It’s a little gentler on the plants to dilute it with water first.


38 posted on 05/02/2022 8:26:31 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: Scarlett156

Hopefully they rinsed them after the dye set. But I have no historical data on that either way. :)


39 posted on 05/02/2022 9:35:35 AM PDT by D Rider ( )
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To: carriage_hill

Yes sir. I thought we pay taxes to keep this kind of thing from happening. That’s rhetorical, we know giving the government money is like giving the keys to your new mid-engine Corvette to a 10 year old.


40 posted on 05/02/2022 8:59:36 PM PDT by bigfootbob (Arm Up and Carry On!)
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