How many mouths could 3,000 loaves of bread feed? Whatever the answer is, that’s how many could be made from wheat grown with a special liquid fertilizer.
Armed with specially designed female port-a-potties, a team of firms in London thinks that solely using urine from female competitors at the London Marathon, a significant amount of cropland can be fertilized.
Why just female toilets, you may ask? That’s because the startup called Peequal initially aimed to design a urinal-style portable event toilet since the lines at female toilets tend to be far longer than at men’s
Stricken by nerves and jitters, and filled up with water for a long run, hundreds of female runners run to the toilets long before they run through the streets of London. Peequal’s unique design is claimed to reduce the time of a woman’s average toilet visit by 270%.
Now, at Peequal’s third London Marathon, the firm is teaming up with NPK Recovery which estimates that 1,000 liters of urine from the toilets at the starting line, if scaled to capture every runner’s pee throughout the whole day, it could fertilize enough wheat for 3,000 loaves of bread.
“Urine doesn’t have to be a waste product,” said Hannah Vandenbergh, founder of NPK Recovery.
“We’re excited to be playing a small part in helping support the sustainability commitments of the iconic TCS London Marathon. Ultimately, we want to help event organizers all over recycle their urine and reduce their carbon footprints.”
MORE STORIES LIKE THIS: Hydrogen-Powered Car Fueled by Sewage Attempting to Break Land Speed Records
The NPK Recovery technology uses bacteria to treat and sanitize the urine, while at the same time turning it into a fertilizer. Last year, over 53,000 runners participated in the marathon, a veritable goldmine of potential urea, nitrogen, and ammonia—key ingredients in both urine and plant fertilizers.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: Village Tackles Speeding by Planting Thousands of Flowers Because Drivers Slow Down as They Pass By
“It’s brilliant to think that the nervous wees of thousands of women are helping a good cause,” runner Susan Farrell told Euro News.
SHARE This Golden Idea With Your Friends On Social Media…