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Jun 4, 2009. 6:38 PMJohnnyZu
says:
Good Instructable, thanks for making me think just a little more "outside of the box". Some of the above posts illustrate that the truth is only as elusive as our facts. I would like to suggest that as we look into questionable activities, use it as an opportunity to find the facts for oneself. I am often amazed at what I find. Good job everybody!
Apr 10, 2009. 12:57 PMgr33ko
says:
My buddy got arrested for peeing on a tree and now he's a registered sex offender in Indiana because of it! BE CAREFUL! Imagine having to knock on someones door and having to say "Hey, ummm, I pee on trees..."
May 10, 2009. 6:16 AMisland_hackster
says:
You took the words outta my mouth with your introductory rant!
Apr 18, 2009. 2:20 PMEPL
says:
This instructable is very weird, yet we do need to stop peeing in perfectly good water. the picture of the 3 guys is very funny. lol
Apr 12, 2009. 7:12 PMfinfan7
says:
Ignoring the rest of the instructable I will mention that it is entirely possible and usually easy for women to urinate while standing.
Apr 10, 2009. 8:02 PMTransience
says:
There's so much wrong with this instructable, it's almost not worth my time to comment here. But people should know the truth. 1) Disposing of any bodily fluid outdoors is a health concern for anyone who might be exposed to your place of disposal. 2)If you live near someone with a well, you're contaminating their drinking water supply. 3)The main reason public sewers exist is because they help prevent the spread of disease. Before the advent of sewers, diseases like cholera were a terrible problem because drinking water would become contaminated by people doing exactly what you're promoting here. 4) It's impossible to run out of water, so there's no reason not to use it. 5) Urine kills grass, not grows it. 6) The reason you see this happen in other parts of the world is because those areas don't have the money or infrastructure to keep a sewer system running, not because they're onto something we're not. 7) The third world should not be a model for anyone's sanitation practices. Finally, i feel i should restate point #4 for emphasis. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO RUN OUT OF WATER, and unless you live in the third world, obtaining clean water isn't a concern. The reason many third world countries have trouble supplying their citizens with clean water is because their citizens DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE PROMOTING HERE, not because their toilets use clean water. You're not helping anyone with this instructable. All you've done is promote a useless practice that only has health risks for everyone involved.
Apr 12, 2009. 7:09 PMfinfan7
says:
I will ignore everything else. Your fourth and restated point is not true of all areas. In the dessert it can be quite common to have water rationing laws. Even in England a wet and rainy island they sometimes run out of wwater.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1661
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/freshwater_supply/freshwater.html
Just because a resource is renewable does not mean there is not a limit to consumption. Here is a simple analogy: just because you have a job and get a pay check regularly does not mean you can waste as much money as you want. If you spend faster than you make, you will run out of money.
If we use fresh water faster than nature can renew it (which we ARE in fact doing), we can and will run out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_resources
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0305-05.htm
http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/freshwater_supply/freshwater.html
Just because a resource is renewable does not mean there is not a limit to consumption. Here is a simple analogy: just because you have a job and get a pay check regularly does not mean you can waste as much money as you want. If you spend faster than you make, you will run out of money.
If we use fresh water faster than nature can renew it (which we ARE in fact doing), we can and will run out.
how about some links to back up your claims, my instructable includes sites of people promoting this and having great results. rebuttals: 1. not if you pee in your compost or in the ground or your plants, as comments below me and the links i supplied state, the plants deal with the toxins of urine just fine. 2. not very likely unless i'm pissing more than 10 gallons a day. also the plants deal with the extra nitrates and toxins. how do you figure animals survive? they don't have toliets.. 3. i would say this only applies to feces, when not composted properly 4.this is a silly statement. We are running out of clean water supplies as more and more of them are contaminated by polution and what not. It's also not raining as much lately (ever heard of a "drought"?) 5. only in great quanities and only if you pee on the leaves, pee on the dirt and the plants can deal with it. also don't always go in the same damn place 6. third world countries do not dispose of their waste properly, but if we could do more on a smaller scale and use our gardens as filtering devices, we might be around a little longer. 7. of course, but the western world should not be seen as a end all be all. Sorry but with all the environmental problems caused by the west, i think we have a long way to go. i'm glad to write an instructable to cause such controversy
Apr 10, 2009. 12:29 AMErik Lindemann
says:
You're right, pee in our drinking water is a big problem. But if we're actually on Earth, then this instructable is useless.
I wish to tell you this. Urine is not a good fertilizer. It is chock full of toxins including ammonia and salt. Ammonia kills living things, and salt has been used for centuries in killing the crops of tribal enemies. That's why if your dog pees in the same spot in the yard every time he goes outside then the grass in that area will die.
Also. Even if you do pee in the grass, it will run into the water table and make its way to the local access route to the larger bodies of water like bays and seas. This is just like all other water-born waste.
Also also. If you flush your urine, and you don't live in a savage country, it will go to a treatment plant where it is processed using coagulents and good bacteria. Afterwards, it will drain into the water table and do what happened before.
That said. Pee in drinking water is not a problem.
I'm saying this because you're just plain wrong, and people need to know truth.
I wish to tell you this. Urine is not a good fertilizer. It is chock full of toxins including ammonia and salt. Ammonia kills living things, and salt has been used for centuries in killing the crops of tribal enemies. That's why if your dog pees in the same spot in the yard every time he goes outside then the grass in that area will die.
Also. Even if you do pee in the grass, it will run into the water table and make its way to the local access route to the larger bodies of water like bays and seas. This is just like all other water-born waste.
Also also. If you flush your urine, and you don't live in a savage country, it will go to a treatment plant where it is processed using coagulents and good bacteria. Afterwards, it will drain into the water table and do what happened before.
That said. Pee in drinking water is not a problem.
I'm saying this because you're just plain wrong, and people need to know truth.
yes, trust the system, let someone else deal with our problems, that's what instructables is all about right? you don't pee ammonia, you pee nitrogen, which can turn into ammonia if left to sit. it's not like the urine will not be filter by the plants, actually that what the plants will do leaving nothing for the water table.
There's so much wrong in this post I don't know where to begin. First, yeah there is salt in urine, around 1%, unless you live in an extremely arid location this is not going to increase soil salinity. Second, urine does NOT contain ammonia, the major nitrogen component is urea, the same as the majority of commercial fertilizers. When urea is applied to soil it is quickly converted to ammonia, the ammonia is nitrified by soil bacteria into nitrates that plants can use. Third, to expect that the approx one gallon of urine that a single human being might apply to a garden a day to "run off" is silly, run off is a situation where soil is saturated and further application of liquid can no longer be absorbed, a gallon of pee won't cause this, and if it's raining that hard, I doubt anyone is going outside to pee.. Fourth, the reason dog urine kills grass is excessive nitrogen content, you can get the same effect dropping a handful of fertilizer in one spot, solution? Don't go in the same spot. Fifth, even in developed nations sewage treatment is mostly a joke, the state of florida has spent the last 40years dumping 300 million gallons a day of minimally treated sewage just off shore of major tourist beaches. Lasty, the only place this instructble falls down is that generally urine should be diluted to prevent "burning" due to the nitrogen content.
While there is some ammonia, it is also high in nitrogen, which is the main component of fertilizer. Sure, if you pee in the same spot constantly it will adversely affect plants, but then again, if you added excess fertilizer or even excess water to a plant that will kill them too. All good things in moderation. Urine is sterile, so its not a big deal whether it gets treated by a full treatment plant. Being filtered through the soil and ground water acts like a natural filtration process. As the author points out, every other animal pees on the ground, and that is just as likely to end up in the water table (if it isn't absorbed by soil and plants first, which is even more likely) and this does not present any problems for human drinking water. The important thing this instructable does is encourage people to conserve fresh water by using less of it in the first place (flushing the toilet less) If you don't want to go as far as this, there is always the old adage: If it's yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down
Apr 10, 2009. 12:33 AMErik Lindemann
says:
Poo on the other hand is great fertilizer, full of nitrates. But if you're going to poo on something you're going to eventually eat, then I suggest you reconsider. In dirtier parts of the country, human waste is a major contributor to disease. The fact of the matter is. It's always better to send your waste to the readily available organizations that take care of it in exchange for a small portion of your tax money.
Apr 16, 2009. 9:57 PMtomohern
says:
Its sad to see so many people who are so wrong (especially here were you would think people are a little more willing to think outside of the box).
All excrement, urine or feces, makes great fertilizer. Urine is sterile and can be applied directly to plant roots (dilute it first if the plants are sensitive to excessive nitrogen.) Feces is not sterile (especially human, dog and pig) and needs to be hot composted for a minimum of 6 months before being applied to plants (compost for a year if applying to root vegetables.) Feces already has all the bacteria in it to get the composting process started. Just be sure to add enough carbon or the bacteria will burn themselves out.
I been gardening with composted poo for years. I don't use it on the root veges but my tomatoes and squash especially love it!
For more info go take a look at The Humanure Handbook: http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html
All excrement, urine or feces, makes great fertilizer. Urine is sterile and can be applied directly to plant roots (dilute it first if the plants are sensitive to excessive nitrogen.) Feces is not sterile (especially human, dog and pig) and needs to be hot composted for a minimum of 6 months before being applied to plants (compost for a year if applying to root vegetables.) Feces already has all the bacteria in it to get the composting process started. Just be sure to add enough carbon or the bacteria will burn themselves out.
I been gardening with composted poo for years. I don't use it on the root veges but my tomatoes and squash especially love it!
For more info go take a look at The Humanure Handbook: http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html
early vegan groups such as pythagoreans used their feces as fertilizer and that was the way that they got their B-12.
The issue isn't water contamination. The issue is wasting water. There is not an infinite supply of fresh water (at least not all at once) and every flush uses several gallons. A properly built composting toilet produces safe compost. Like any compost pile, it produces high enough internal temperatures to kill harmful bacteria. That makes it very different from just pooping in the garden directly.
For some people going in an unusual or semi-public space might actually be challenging. I read recently that the trick is to hold your breath. For some reason this seems to cure a "nervous bladder". (Something about CO2 levels in the blood)
Apr 9, 2009. 7:54 PMCarpetGnome
says:
Good instructable, if someone is worries about indecent exposure, they can urinate in a jar or jug. Please make sure the jug is properly marked, don't want someone filling it with tap water and taking it on a hike.
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