Kosfeld Fenna Thesis - Flipbook - Page 51
Pecunia non olet - Money doesn’t stink
At least it didn’t happen in the times of the Roman Empire because they put an actual tax on urine collected in
bespoke public toilets, as it was seen as yellow gold for
Leather Tanning
Cleaning detergent
Dye - enhancer
Teeth Whitener
Health and Medicinal purposes
Urine has been a valuable resource throughout humanity’s existence. One reason might be that it is always
there. No matter what we do, we will always pee. Even
when we do not drink a lot of water, our bodies release
toxins and nutrients even if we feel like we have no
liquid.
It is so abundant that we have trouble managing our liquid ( and solid ) excrements in the context of an aimed
environmental balance.
Pee is a very personal matter as it is the footprint of
your diet, hormonal system, stress, age, and general
health status.
Yet, on average, a person pees between 800ml and 2
litres a day, which is around 500l of urine a year.
In context, that is more than two fully 昀椀lled bathtubs
with the liquid you release daily.
That makes the equivalent of 2.43 million l/d in
Barcelona.
As mentioned before, our urine depends on many factors and varies not only from day to day but even from
morning to afternoon. It is nearly impossible to get a
standardised sample of urine several times. We know,
though that the average urine consists of the following:
95% of water
2% urea
0.9-1.0% nitrogen
0.1% phosphorus
0.6% potassium
0.1% creatinine
0.03% uric acid
and hundreds of metabolic breakdown products
Because urine contains a high amount of nutrients (
mainly urea and nitrogen ), it is a famous material for
fertilising the back garden or plot to enhance plant
nutrient levels.
Due to the amount of urine being 昀氀ushed away in a
linear and wasteful manner, we face many problems related to our comfort and ignorance towards existential
material management.
While global water demand increases by 1% a year
every day every person ( Medeiros) ( in developed
countries ) 昀氀ushes the toilet between 5-7 times with
a standard amount of 6 litres per 昀氀ush to wash down
the tiny amount of 250-400 ml of urine per 昀氀ush. ( The
proportions are on average and vary depending on the
toilet model and pee pro昀椀le of the person ). That is a
ratio of 1:15 urine to water, which results in a tremendous amount of water waste that can be overcome by
changing our sanitation systems to dry-waste-free-circular toilets.
“Although urine makes up only 1% of the total volume
of wastewater, it accounts for 50–80% of the nutrient
content. Nutrients have to be removed by resource-intensive processes at wastewater treatment plants” (
sciencedaily)
Not only is there a lot of water wasted, but also the
amounts of urine ending up in wastewater 昀氀ows lead to
Eutrophication:
Algal bloom and contamination through nitrogen over昀氀ow. The environment cannot uptake the immediate
amount of nitrogen.
Increasing salination
urine contains a lot of salts that, when released into
the environment after wastewater treatment, can lead
to salination of surrounding soil and have an osmosis
effect on the vegetation.
groundwater contamination
Greenhouse gases
nitrous oxide (N2O) is released if nitrogenous compounds break down. Scale-up leads to a potent greenhouse gas with a potential global warming of 300%
compared to CO2 ( IPPC)
higher energy consumption of wastewater treatments to remove nitrogen because biological removal of
nitrogen is more challenging than other recycling and
昀椀ltrating techniques
These are the main reasons why it is essential to shift
our sanitation system and 昀椀nd alternative solutions to
overcome the natural nitrogen overload that we will not
be able to stop because we will never stop peeing!
It is a vicious and hopeful never-ending cycle.
The idea of decentralised wastewater treatments and
separate urine collection systems is not new, but it has
received more attention in the past 10 years as we face
rapid environmental and climate changes due to our
actions and non-reactions. Stockholm is the forerunner.
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