ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) – Two researchers at the University of Michigan put “urine” on a peony.
Instead, they pee on peonies.
Environmental engineering professors Nancy Love and Christa Wigginton regularly attend Anne Arbor School’s Nicole Arboretum, where they apply urine -based fertilizers to peony beds before the annual spring flowering.
It’s all part of an attempt to inform the public about their research, which shows that the use of nutrient -rich urinary fertilizers can have environmental and economic benefits.
“At first, we thought people might be skeptical. You know, it might be weird.” But we have very little to do with this attitude, “Wigington said.” In general, these people think. is fun at first, but then they understand why we’re doing it and we support it. ”
Love co-authored a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology that found that urine diversion and recycling led to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and energy.
Urine contains essential nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus and has been used as fertilizer for crops for thousands of years.
Lav said collecting human urine and using it to produce renewable fertilizers – as part of what he calls a “circular nutrient economy” – will lead to greater environmental sustainability.
Think of it not as recycling, but as a “slippery bike,” Wigington said.
“We were looking for comprehensible terms, but we came up with an idea and it was like‘ pee-cycling ’happened,” he said.
As part of a $ 3 million grant from the National Science Foundation awarded in 2016, Love and Wigginton not only tested advanced urine treatment methods, but also examined people’s attitudes toward using fertilizers derived from in urine.
This led them to the most expensive Peony Garden campus, containing more than 270 historically cultivated species from the early 19th and 20th centuries, representing the American, Canadian and European peonies of that period. The garden is full of approximately 800 peonies and up to 10,000 flowers during flowering.
Love and Wigginton plan to spend the weekend talking to guests in May and June. An important lesson they learned was the accuracy of the language.
“We used the term ‘pee on peonies.’ “Then it gets people’s attention and then we can talk about nutrient flows and nutrient efficiency in our communities and how we can be more sustainable,” Lav said. “Some people seem to think it’s okay to drop drawers and take out peonies.
“So this year we’re going to use ‘pee for peonies’ and hopefully we don’t have that mess.”
The urinary fertilizer used by researchers these days is native to Vermont. But if everything goes according to plan, they will release local fertilizers next year.
The divided bathroom in the engineering campus building is designed to dispose of solid waste in a treatment plant and the urinary tract at the bottom of a storage tank. Urine and toilet urine had to be treated and would eventually be used to make manure, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced the school to stop collection attempts.
Meanwhile, the facility is updating its freezing concentrator and adding a new, more energy-efficient pasteurizer, both developed by the Vermont-based Rich Earth Institute.
“The idea was to ride a bike in the community, so we wanted to take urine from that subject and use it within that community,” Wigington said.
Source: Huffpost
