Rich Earth Institute

In partnership with the University of Michigan, University at Buffalo, and the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, the Rich Earth Institute is studying the presence and persistence of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals when urine-derived fertilizer is used for growing fresh vegetables.

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Since 2012, the Institute has been applying sanitized urine to hay fields in the Brattleboro area. With funding from USDA’s Northeast SARE program, we have quantified effects of pure and diluted urine on crop yield. We have also looked at ammonia (nitrogen) loss to evaporation, and effectiveness of adding urine to compost.

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Urine can be used in a home garden without treatment, but when moving beyond the home, treatment is needed to meet safety requirements and ensure environmental and economic efficiency. Rich Earth has developed an energy-efficient pasteurization system that processes all of the urine in our community scale collection program. We are currently developing nitrogen stabilization methods and energy-efficient freeze concentration technology to reduce storage, transport, and application costs.

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The Urine Nutrient Reclamation Program is the first community-scale urine recycling project in the United States.

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Through our participatory action research, we seek to explore the history and future of urine reclamation in society and in relationship to the natural world. By gathering the questions, concerns, and new ideas that different people have about urine diversion and its use in agriculture, we can consider both the problematic aspects of conventional wastewater and food systems as well as the new possibilities and challenges of urine reclamation. How we think about our collective responsibilities to our human and non-human kin informs the trajectory of our research and technological development.

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