Writing and updating three books, conducting workshops, selling urine-diversion gizmoes (www.ecovita.net), and trying to make a living are all crowding out my blog-writing time. Check back in May for updates!
In the meantime, comments are shut down for this blog. We were getting tons of spam posts daily. Email directly if you have a question.
Add comment April 14th, 2009
anonymous@dull.com (folks, why be anonymous?!) who hasn’t read Liquid Gold asks:
“I’m all for using the P [phosporus] and K [potassium] on the plants. Even getting some N. But I’m worried about the Na. (less about the Cl) How does one capture the NaCl? Getting some of the Na out is all I’m looking for. So far, I’ve seen a suggestion of converting it to 2Na4Si2O7 via heat.
But I’d like something a bit less dangerous than making P in the ‘white’ form. Even if I can convert it to ‘red’ in an iron retort.”
Ah, salt. As King Lear’s daughter pointed out, it makes things better. But it can also give plants the vegetative equivalent of high blood pressure.
Anonymous, Pee On Earth Day is about distributed application of urine. Urine is mostly about nitrogen, but really it all depends on one’s diet and what your body used and didn’t use and decided to discard.
Salt is also a big issue in recycled wastewater and stormwater runoff (salt used for deicing washes off to the environment around roads–I was just talking to a UMass researcher about this last night at the Building Energy conference), so it is the subject of many researchers’ work. The best fate for excreted salt is consumption or recycling to the sea.
However, as reported in Liquid Gold, an issue is sodium as table salt (Na Cl). Westerners especially have a high-salt diet.
- One urine-fertilizer practitioner simply reduced his salt intake for the benefit of his plants.
- Another way to remove it is with facultative halophytes, or plants that take up salt. These can be either harvested or eaten by animals as what my technical advisor David Del Porto calls a sort of “green salt lick.”
- On a larger-scale, salt can be removed electrically from large quantities of urine. I’m sure there are also ways to precipitate it out.
But I like the approach of Keith of Oakland, a physician and a cook, who simply decided to reduce his sodium intake. Good for him, good for his garden!
4 comments March 9th, 2006
Wondering what to do with the “Urine Charge: Take Life Full Circle!” decal that’s bound into the backs of copies of the first U.S. edition of Liquid Gold?
So far, we’ve put them on:
toilet tanks
cars
bathrooms in vegetarian restaurants
urinals
bicycles
urine collection bottles
and here’s a fun use–use the decal to cover the uninteresting logo on a mug. Bring the mug to events to make them a lot more interesting. I first brought mine to Chicago’s “Green Drinks,” a monthly get-together of folks interested in green building and green practices. Lots of double takes and quizzical looks.
The decal is dishwasher fast, I’m amazed to see.
Yes, the decal is vinyl based (which is why it’s waterproof), so unless I can find a non-vinyl alternative, future editions of the book will not include the decal.
You can also order the decal from Ecowaters by sending $1 and a #10 self-addressed stamped envelope to Ecowaters, PO Box 1330, Concord, MA 01742.
Or, buy the mug from Cafe Press with the message conveniently emblazoned on it. [click here]Â Proclaim your practice with pride!
Add comment February 22nd, 2006
My mother emailed me the link to a great article about traveling through eastern Russia, along the Bering Strait. Amazing photos. [link]
What caught her eye is a photo of a reindeer herder giving a little cup of urine to reindeer as a salty treat.
North of Kanchalan, Russia | A herder offers a sodium-snack (human urine in a tin cup) to reindeer, which in turn jockey for position to get to the treat. Globe Staff Photo / Essdras M. Suarez
Add comment February 12th, 2006
Becky Owens tipped me off about the release of the book, “Pees On Earth,” a collection of photos of its author, Ellen Jong, urinating outside in locations worldwide.
This isn’t really a Liquid Gold practice—she urinates mostly on non-carbon, impervious surfaces, such as a discarded toilet on a street corner, an asphalt-shingle roof (if only it were a vegetated green eco-roof…) and in streets. As Liquid Gold reader Dave Alexander commented: “Improper application of nitrogen-rich liquids.”
Add comment February 5th, 2006
To be featured in the next edition of Liquid Gold:
Nik Bertulis of Berkeley, California made this combination sink and urinal. It drains to the backyard farm compost pile, which was suffering for lack of moisture and more nitrogen. This is mounted on the upper deck of the home also known as Green Fairy Farm in Berkeley. Green Fairy Farm’s owners raise chickens, ducks, and goats in their backyard micro-eden, just 1/7th of an acre in inner-city Berkeley. Fruit trees and raised-bed intensive gardens provide much of their produce. They sell goat milk and goat cheese, as well as eggs.
Here’s a link to an article about our last Liquid Gold talk at Green Fairy Farm. It’s rife with not-quite-rights, but it’s well intentioned.
Add comment January 29th, 2006
Recycle nutrients, save water! Feed the earth that feeds you!
A poster with instructions, stickers and press releases will be available on this site in April!
1 comment January 22nd, 2006
Check out these gorgeous flower- and seashell-themed water-flush urinals by Clark Sorenson in San Francisco!
2 comments January 8th, 2006
To start off the blog, here’s a snippet of the soon-to-be-classic, “Pee Outside” by Frankie Meyer of Austin, Texas. He tells us that it’s gaining “cult status” and is played quite often on a Vermont radio station.
To obtain the entire song on his entire CD, “Dangnabbit,” go to his Web site.
And check out the rest of his Web site, which describes his other intriguing CDs and his work with natural building!
Liquid Gold readers are reminded to only pee outside on well-mulched or well-aerated soil, or on piles of leaves, shredded wood, etc. While conserving water used for flushing, peeing on asphalt, concrete or other non-carbon impervious material won’t do much to recycle the water and nitrogen in your urine, and could result in the typical urban latrine odor.
Add comment January 1st, 2006
