Human Urine Used to Fertilize Plants

Study Shows Great Source of Nitrogen and Other Minerals

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services news release, a group of researchers in Finland who work at the University of Kuopio's Department of Environmental Sciences have concluded that human urine is an essential fertilizer.

The new study has found that those who cannot afford to buy fertilizer for vegetable gardens can use their own urine which has proven to be deemed safe by scientists. Scientist, Helvi Heinonen-Tanski states, "Urine is a valuable fertilizer which poor people could use to increase yields and not contaminate their environment. It is a resource, not a pollutant, if correctly managed".

Researchers decided to look into the urine fertilizer so it could help those farmers who are strapped for money to use their natural resources, and at the same time save water and reduce the contamination of their water resources. Even though the thought of using human urine is very uncommon, it is increasing more and more in parts of Finland. In some parts, urine has been used to fertilize barley and cucumbers.

The vegetable used to test the theory by scientist was cabbage. The end results of the cabbage that had been fertilized with human urine showed that the cabbage was larger, it grew to it's maximum size much more faster, bugs were less likely to damage the crop than those that were fertilized with a commercial fertilizer. Other findings concluded that urine collected by one person over a year could fertilize and grow 160 cabbages. Scientists have recommended that if you are going to collect your urine for fertilizing measures to be sure you collect it from an eco type toilet, and store it in a sealed container. After collecting the urine, it can be spread by scattering it around the soil where the seeds are planted.

Dr. Philip Tierno the Director of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at the New York Medical Center in New York City made a statement regarding using the urine as fertilization by saying, "Urine is "a good natural nitrogen containing substance and probably could be easily utilized" as a fertilizer", he also adds, "There's nothing wrong with using it,".