Questions around safety of using diluted urine in agriculture?

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  • Elisabeth
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Re: Questions around safety of using diluted urine in agriculture?

Hi Mohammad,
Regarding your questions about the safety of using diluted urine in agriculture, there are plenty of publications available that show how to do this reuse in a safe manner. You can filter the SuSanA library by "reuse type: urine" which brings up 289 publications:
www.susana.org/en/knowledge-hub/resource...l_6%5B26%5D=26&test=

We also have this post with 5 key documents to help you narrow down the vast number of publications on offer:
forum.susana.org/175-urine-reuse-or-infi...euse-or-infiltration

In short, the risks arising from hormones and pharmaceutical residues in urine are much lower than the same risks for wastewater, as the urine is applied to the soil where soil microbes can break down complex molecules more easily than breaking them down in water (due to higher density of microbes).

A quick overview is also available on Wikipedia here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuse_of_human_excreta#Urine

Regards,
Elisabeth
Dr. Elisabeth von Muench
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  • fppirco
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Questions around safety of using diluted urine in agriculture?

Hi,
For first time I heard about using diluted  urine in agriculture in Arno's (SEI) presentation in BGR Hannover,  Germany sanitation symposium in 2008.That time I asked him about  biological and chemical safety concern which you pointed out about pathogens and pharmaceutical residuals.  But I wish you determine urine pathogens are being killed in 6 month storage and what about some physiological metabolites such sex hormone in both males and females ? How about spores and cycst as resistant biological form may be appear as  soil plant pest or chemical pollution?
In addition  diluted urine as both water and liquid fertilizer I myself prefer  wetland construction and vermifilter technology.


Best regards;
Mohammad 
Researcher and consultant

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