Human waste is usually flushed down the toilet where pipes take it to a wastewater treatment plant to remove the nitrogen and phosphorous, which also happen to be essential fertilizer nutrients for growing plants. Researchers from the Rich Earth Institute located in the state of Vermont are using grant money from the US Department of Agriculture to study how urine can be used as a fertilizer for crops.

Human waste is usually flushed down the toilet where pipes take it to a wastewater treatment plant to remove the nitrogen and phosphorous, which also happen to be essential fertilizer nutrients for growing plants.

Researchers from the Rich Earth Institute located in the state of Vermont are using grant money from the US Department of Agriculture to study how urine can be used as a fertilizer for crops.

One statistic from the World Health Organization says that urine accounts for less than one percent of wastewater, but it contains 80 percent of the nitrogen and 55 percent of the phosphorous taken out by treatment facilities.

Co-founder of the Rich Earth Institute, Abraham Noe-Hays is quoted as saying: “All our lives we go to the bathroom and flush these things down, make these thing disappear as much as we can. To realize that those things are actually good things, when used correctly, is really empowering.”

Other countries have already embraced the use of urine as an effective fertilizer, but some people are grossed out by human waste being used to grow crops.