A Bristol startup is turning festival urine into fertiliser for 4,500 native trees in Wales — and it could reshape how Britain sources nutri
From the article:
Only seven percent of Britain’s native woodlands are in good condition. Pests, pathogens, and invasive species have worked through the rest. And rising fertilizer costs, driven by ongoing conflict, have not helped. A Bristol-based startup thinks part of the answer has been sitting in festival portable toilets all along.
NPK Recovery, based at the University of the West of England, collects urine at large events such as the London Marathon and Boomtown Festival, and processes it into plant fertilizer on-site. The company removes contaminants from raw urine and concentrates the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that plants need. Field trials show the product performs comparably to synthetic alternatives. Researchers are also quick to note that it doesn’t smell.
The company is now taking on its biggest test: a three-year trial to grow 4,500 native British trees using urine-derived fertilizer, funded by a £435,627 (approximately $553,000) Forestry Commission grant.
The lake weed is dried, shredded, enriched, and crushed before being sold for 25% less than chemical fertilizers imported from other states
"From Northern India comes the story of an entrepreneur’s efforts to clean up a historically-beautiful lakefront by turning an infestation of weeds into rich natural fertilizer.
Being something along the lines of the Lake Como of India, Dal Lake in the nation’s northerly city of Srinagar is surrounded by palaces, temples, fog-cloaked forested hills, and is iconic in the country for its houseboat culture.
Pictured: View of an island in Dal Lake, Srinagar
Yet for all its natural and historic beauty, Dal Lake was sick—sick with lake weeds.
“These aquatic plants had accumulated near Dal Lake over the years, creating an unsightly mess and posing a threat to the local ecosystem,” Maninder Singh tells The Better India.
Singh is the founder of Clean ‘Effen’ Tech (CET), a local-government partner company that harvests thousands of tons of those lake weeds every year, dries and enriches them, then grinds them into fertilizer to sell to local farmers.
Maninder was first inspired to find a solution for clearing the lake weed when visiting Indian-administered Kashmir for his first wedding anniversary. Having already launched an IT startup in his native Uttar Pradesh, Singh would eventually change his focus to creating a social enterprise to tackle the challenges of our age.
The sight of the lake weed marring Dal Lake’s beauty immediately came into his head, and he began an 8-year process to construct a value chain that would see the lake, the local ecology, the global ecology, the local economy, and his own economy, all flourish together.
“Our project is designed to process up to 70,000 [metric] tonnes of lake weed each year, which yields between 20,000 to 22,000 tonnes of organic manure. This large-scale effort is expected to lead to an annual reduction of around 50,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions,” Singh tells The Better India.
“We have made an impact by enriching over 4,400 acres of land, improving soil health, and supporting sustainable agriculture practices.”
Local workers harvest the lake weed using large machines and transport it to CET’s production plant. There the lake water is drained and treated for heavy metals and other pollutants before it’s released.
The lake weed is dried, shredded, enriched, and pulverized before being sold for 25% less than chemical fertilizers imported from other states like UP and Haryana, saving more emissions from transportation.
Local farmers have benefited from the cost savings and from the lack of soil amending. Harvests are up, as are soil nutrient concentrations. Also in an economic sense, the local tourism industry will no doubt benefit from the 14,800 metric tons of lake weed pulled in by Singh’s partners last year, not least because during the hotter summer months the mounds of weeds decay and putrefy the air.
Looking to the future, Singh aims to replicate this success in other Indian lakes—starting in the states of Odisha and Rajasthan. Anywhere there’s a beautiful fresh water body overrun with aquatic plants, Singh hopes to see some Clean ‘Effen’ Tech brought in to clean it the eff up."
Based on the results of this poll, for the next few weeks I’m gonna test out doing 5 articles a week instead of 10, as part of an effort to maintain my own mental health. If these half-sized posts get markedly fewer notes, I’ll try to figure out a different compromise.
Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles!
1. Turning Surfboard Waste Into Sustainable Housing
“A Hawaiian architecture firm has found a creative way to repurpose discarded surfboard foam by transforming it into building blocks for constructing homes. […] The firm also partners with local businesses to collect foam from packaging materials[….] While the materials used are lightweight, they still offer excellent insulation and durability, addressing both environmental and practical needs.”
2. HHS Walks Back “Autism Registry” Plans
“Thursday April 24th, HHS said in written statements to multiple journalists that they will not be creating an autism registry, contrary to Dr. Bhattacharya’s statements. HHS’ reversal on creating an autism registry shows that even when it seems that no one is listening, your voice matters. Public outcry seems to have caused HHS to change course and walk away from some of the most concerning aspects of the project. Right now, HHS does not appear to be creating a centralized list of autistic people that could be used against our community.”
3. Teaming up to track the Pacific walrus
“In Alaska, western scientists often collaborate with Alaska Native hunters when counting, tagging, and/or sampling wildlife. The Indigenous knowledge and expertise that these hunters bring encompasses everything from animal behavior and capture techniques, to reading the weather and sea ice.”
4. Workers in 600+ US Cities to Protest 'Billionaire Takeover' on May Day
“The protests will take place in over 600 cities in all 50 states, said organizers[….] “Across the nation, we're reclaiming May Day in the spirit it was born, in solidarity with immigrants, in defense of all working people who make our schools run, our hospitals heal, our trains move, and our cities thrive."”
5. Loos to loaves: How the ‘nervous wees’ of London Marathon runners are being turned into fertiliser
“The campaign is powered by Peequal, a company designing women’s urinals that it claims are 2.7 times faster to use than traditional port-a-loos[.…] Instead of being sent into sewage systems, the collected urine will be treated using bacteria to extract nutrients like nitrogen, a chemical that wheat craves. The fertiliser will then be trialled on test fields to evaluate its performance. According to NPK Recovery’s estimates, 1,000 litres of urine could eventually grow enough wheat for about 195 loaves of bread.”
Bonus: Wildlife livestreams!
April 15-21 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)
A new prototype device demonstrates an innovative approach to producing ammonia – a key component of fertilizer – that could transform an in
The air around us contains a powerful solution for making agriculture more sustainable. Researchers at Stanford University and King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Saudi Arabia have developed a prototype device that can produce ammonia – a key fertilizer ingredient – using wind energy to draw air through a mesh. The approach they developed, if perfected, might eliminate the need for a century-old method that produces ammonia by combining nitrogen and hydrogen at high pressures and temperatures. The older method consumes 2% of global energy and contributes 1% of annual carbon dioxide emissions from its reliance on natural gas.
The study, published Dec. 13 in Science Advances, involved the first on-site – rather than in a lab – demonstration of the technology. The researchers envision someday integrating the device into irrigation systems, enabling farmers to generate fertilizer directly from the air.
