Urine Planting
Summary
Urine has a negative stigma of being a waste product, but as of recently, the use of urine as fertilizer has become more and more common in the country of Nepal. People of Nepal were given the choice of a regular squatting pan or a dual hole pan that collects waste in one pan and urine in another. Without wanting to waste the urine, few in Nepal have been daring enough to use it to fertilize their crops and it has worked effectively. Urine is mostly water mixed in with nutrients that crops need and has no health risk. It helps crops grow faster and described by many, has enriched the crops with more flavor. The usage of urine as fertilizer also helps the environment by using less water and harmful fertilizers that then help lessen a persons carbon footprint. Yet with all the upside, their is a downfall. For the farmers of Nepal, a family can only create so much urine each month to help fertilize all the plants. The transportation of this substance can be difficult for communities in urban settings. The biggest problem people worry about is contamination of urine with fecal pathogens and how foods that grow in the urine fertilizer are handled. If scientist and farmers can find a way to prove that urine is safe to use on crops, it would benefit the world greatly.
My Reflection
Urine being used as fertilizer? Who would try this? Those were the questions I asked myself when I was reading this article. I was quite shocked to find out that a waste product that we produce could be so beneficial to us. I think that it is great that we can use urine to fertilize plants because it cost virtually nothing to produce and lessen the carbon footprint of a person. On top of that, we could use less water as well. I am all for using urine as a fertilizer, but it has to be tested somehow. Knowing that urine is a waste product that could be contaminated with fecal pathogens, there has to be a way to test if the urine is safe to use. I also believe that if people are planning to use urine has fertilizer to grow produce to sell, they must either get urine from a factory or have a license to use urine. With these regulation in place, it would be hard for produce to be contaminated. Just imagine how much less water would be used and how little harmful fertilizer would run into our water supply if every farmer would use urine fertilizer. Who would have thought that this golden liquid would be liquid gold to farmers?