Dear Esther,

Please find out from your colleague which school that may be? We should also ask Moses Wakala, he seems to be a successful ecosan consultant in Kenya. Maybe he knows (he works in Western Kenya).

I have only heard of one documented case where urine was sold routinely, and that was in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Whether this is still the case now, I don't know.

I quote from the case study from Ouagadougou which I helped to review:

. The income from selling the ecosan fertilisers i.e.
sanitised urine and dried faeces to gardeners and small
farmers: The birg-koom fertiliser (sanitised urine) is sold
for EUR 0.15 for a 20-L jerrycan (equals 100 F CFA) or
EUR 7.5 per m3
. The price for birg-koenga fertiliser
(sanitised faeces) would be EUR 3.86 for the 50 kg-bag
(2500 F CFA) although less of this fertiliser has been
sold so far. If 922 households with 6.5 members deliver half their daily urine
production (say half of 1L/cap/d), this would be about 96 m3
urine collected in the system per month. Hence, this would result in an
income of EUR 720 per month for the sold urine fertiliser.

Here you find the case study:
susana.org/lang-en/case-studies?view=ccbktypeitem&type=2&id=84

I have heard of urine being stolen though in Burkina Faso and Kenya (and people putting locks on their urine storage chambers). So it is regarded as valuable! But again, I have never seen this documented, I just remember being told by someone (can't remember who).

If anyone knows about urine being sold or stolen, please tell us about it here.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Lucy,

I was also of the impression that this was not done. But I talked to a colleague who had heard of schools selling urine.
That's why I asked the question here on the forum to find out if this was the case already.
I know that urine is collected from, for example, schools and used as fertilizer. But I do not know if this has been commercialized.

Esther

I was not aware there was already business of selling urine in Kenya. Plse update me on where. Thanks.

Lucy Njambi
Informal Settlements Manager
Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company

Hello,

Does anyone know what the cost of urine is (in Kenya)?
How much, for example, are schools being paid for a litre of urine, that will then be used as fertilizer.

Thanks in advance.

Esther