Typically, when someone says their beer tastes like piss, that’s taken to be a bad thing. But for attendees at a recent music festival, comparing a sudsy brew with its biologically inevitable after-effect isn’t an insult at all. In fact, that’s exactly what festival organizers are aiming for.
Pee. Is there anything it can’t do?
For the past few years, a handful of folks up in Brattleboro, VT have been saving their pee in giant tubs. Or rather, they’ve been relieving themselves into the special urine-separating toilets provided at many public events in the small town of 12,000, which collect their potent leftovers into a giant vat, and are then handed over to local farmers. While most people might not enjoy receiving a giant vat of pee, these farmers are delighted with this traditionally repulsive gift. This exchange is part of a pilot program in Vermont, known colloquially as pee-cycling, and it may just serve as a brilliant and effective solution to the world’s waste disposal and agricultural woes at once.
