Is "Peecycling" the Next Wave in Sustainable Living?
Human waste can be converted into valuable fertilizer, if people can get past the "ick" factor.
The Rich Earth Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont, aims to shift how we think about our own waste. They want to "close the nutrient cycle" by using our urine to grow what we next consume.
Today, most human waste in the U.S. flows down the pipes to a facility such as DC Water's Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world. Blue Plains receives an average of 370 million gallons of wastewater, 94 percent of which is from residential sources in the District of Columbia and parts of Maryland and Virginia. This includes what washes down the kitchen drain, fills up washing machines, and flushes down toilets.
Once at Blue Plains, it all goes through
