BRATTLEBORO — The Rich Earth Institute is hosting a team of academic and industry leaders for a conference on Friday, Aug. 14, entitled “Urine Diversion – Moving Ahead.”
Urine diversion refers to separating and capturing urine at the source, in the bathroom, with new types of toilet fixtures and waterless urinals. This method can remove the majority of nitrogen and phosphorus in human waste from the water stream, where it currently causes nutrient pollution, sometimes resulting in algal blooms and eutrophication in our water.
The Rich Earth Institute, whose mission is to advance and promote the use of human waste as a resource, has been conducting field trials since 2012 using source separated urine as a fertilizer on hay, carrots, and lettuce with grant funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
This is the first community-scale urine nutrient reclamation project in the United States and, during August, more than 4,000 gallons of treated urine will be applied to hay fields on two farms.
Participants in “Urine Diversion-Moving Ahead” are arriving from the Universities of California, Florida, and Michigan, from the Water Environment Research Foundation in Washington D.C., Hampton Roads Sanitation District in Virginia, and additional engineers from Maine, New Hampshire and Switzerland.
The guests will tour Rich Earth's facilities and forge partnerships for continued research and innovation. They will share ideas and plan for further expansion of this emerging field, which has great potential to save municipal costs while ensuring high standards of water quality for the future.