Vermont Farmers Use Urine to Grow a Greener Future

By Urine the News Staff | Published March 1, 2025

What if saving the planet started in the bathroom? In rural Vermont, it kind of does.

According to a BBC Future report, farmers across Windham County are tapping into a surprising — and sustainable — fertilizer: human urine. With the help of the Rich Earth Institute, residents collect and donate thousands of gallons of pee each year through a system known as peecycling.

The logic is simple: human urine is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, the same nutrients found in synthetic fertilizers — minus the carbon footprint and toxic byproducts. When pasteurized and carefully applied to farmland, it can more than double crop yields compared to no fertilizer at all.

The community-led Urine Nutrient Reclamation Program (UNRP) collects over 12,000 gallons of urine annually. After pasteurization, it’s stored and sprayed onto crops like kale and spinach at precisely timed intervals to maximize nutrient absorption and minimize runoff.

“Everybody pees,” says longtime participant Betsy Williams. “It’s an untapped resource.” Her home even features a specialized toilet that separates urine at the source and sends it to a basement tank for collection. “I didn’t even like to go anywhere where I might have to pee and not have a jug with me,” she added.

Beyond nutrient recycling, peecycling offers serious environmental benefits. It reduces greenhouse gas emissions, saves water by skipping traditional toilet flushing, and prevents excess nitrogen and phosphorus from entering waterways — where they would otherwise fuel algae blooms that damage ecosystems.

The initiative has inspired similar pilots in Paris, Sweden, Nepal, and South Africa. But scaling up in the U.S. isn’t easy. Regulation, plumbing code limitations, and the logistics of transporting liquid waste pose challenges. Still, the Rich Earth Institute is forging ahead with concentrated urine technologies and legal workarounds to make pee-based farming more accessible nationwide.

As attitudes shift, the so-called “ick factor” is losing ground to a simple, circular logic: if we’re eating nutrients and excreting them, why not return them to the soil where they belong?

Read the full story via BBC Future.