For those with an interest in Scott's work on urine reuse in China for growing of apples, see here a presentation he gave about his work in August at the SuSanA meeting:
www.susana.org/images/SuSanA_Meeting_28/...olm19/Scott_Chen.pdf
(or attached below)

Here is one of the slides:



Regards,
Elisabeth

Scott - It's on its way!

KaiMikkel:
Thank you for using my story as the testimony for the bill.
Actually, my work is not widely appreciated by the policy makers in China although the people are supporting me.
Some major schorlars are telling our learders and peoples that the centralized waste water treatment plants are the most mordern technology in the western world..
Hundres of billions money have been throwing in the water business...without and obvious improvement.
If you had successfully have the bill passed, please let me know and I would use it as an example to tell my government and people to treausre our tradional agriculturel practices.
It is a pity that I can not view the Youtube document..as it is banned in China.
I would be very appreciated if you could send me the file to my email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
best wishes
Scott

Scott,

I recently utilized the excerpt that focuses on you in the the Mona Lisa Production documentary called " Urine Superpowers " for prerecorded video testimony that I created and presented to the House Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources of the Vermont (USA) legislature as part of my testimony on behalf of H.375, a bill that seeks to expand and incentivize the use of ecological toilets (UDDTs and composting toilets) and onsite greywater systems.*

Because I couldn't be certain of the acoustics of the room where the presentation will be shown or the quality of people's hearing who will see it, I added English subtitles to the portions of the film where you speak in English. I wanted to make sure that everyone who watches the presentation understands every word you say.

Thereafter, and for purely educational purposes, I uploaded the English subtitled version to YouTube to further spread the news of your excellent urine-to-fertilizer project. Here is the link to that version:

I made sure to provide as much information as I could as to the provenance of the excerpt and also the documentary from which it was pulled. I am only interested in promoting your work and I hope that the information I provided in the notes section of the video quells any concern over copyright.

Thank you again for your dedication.


* See this thread for more information about this bill:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/142-go...stems-in-vermont-usa

Dear Elisabeth:
Thank you for your patience to chase me for the documentary and the effort to uploading it to Youtube.

The description is good enough just for protecting the copyrights of Mona Lisa Productions Ltd.

Your idea of putting my apples site,item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a230r.1.14....il&from=profile_shop, is very good also. But, no people outside Chian can purchase it before I apply the export documents.

How famous I am? Now, I have over 25,000 fans and 6000 customers..over 30 newspapers,radio and magazines interviewed me since 2011. In the media, I am known as Mr. Toilet and Mr. Apple..

I have become more recognized by local experts after my Berlin speech on March 4th.

One famous Buinding Science Acacamy even invitied me to their company to tell them my story and they paid me 5,000 RMB last week.

My apples price and cherries price is almost the highest in China, at least twice higher than those organic apples in the bio-shops of Paris.

My strawberries is 120 RMB per kilo.

On April 18th, the former president of China Environment Institute, Professor Xia Qing made a statement to the audience that I have started China Toilet Revolution and circular economy far before the top leaders' call for toilet revolution in China.

best wishes
Scott

Did I answer all your questions?

best wishes
Scott

Yes, isn't it great? Scott sent me the mp4 file of the same video this afternoon (600 MB) and I have just finished uploading it to Youtube (SuSanA's Youtube channel). You can watch it here (7 minutes long):



Scott's link above to a Chinese video sharing website shows the same video and is great for people who live in countries where Youtube is banned, like Pakistan and China. However, it has a few seconds of advertising/delay at the beginning.

Dear Scott,

I have given it in Youtube the following description, do you agree with it? Or let me know how to provide more details or a better description. I just added all possible links (also to the full version) that I was aware of.

Urine use in China as fertiliser for apple trees (Scott Chen) - from documentary Urine Superpowers

by Mona Lisa Productions Ltd of France

ARTE aired the Urine Superpowers in Germany and France on 14 November 2014
boutique.arte.tv/f9918-superpouvoirs_uri...uperpouvoirs%20urine

German version available here:
www.arte.tv/guide/de/048171-000/die-beso...issenschaft-vom-urin
The part from China starts at 33:16

For more information:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/175-fo...-successful-business

Should I also add the link to your website where people can order your apples??

The video is superbly made. I am so glad you were allowed to cut out this China segment from the long documentary on urine super powers and put it online. Who did the Chinese sub-titles for you?

And those scenes that were shot at the school: amazing how all these school children stand and sit like soldiers, so disciplined and quiet... Would never be possible with German school children - ha!

The video clip said you are now a celebrity in China... Is that true? Can you tell us examples of your celebrity status? Are you often in the media? Perhaps you should also use twitter by the way (oh, probably also banned in China, I am sorry).

I wish we had more people from China on the forum, too. Keep up the great work!

Greetings,
Elisabeth

P.S. See related thread where this documentary was discussed on the forum here:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/173-ur...93-urine-documentary

Thanks to Carol McCreary for locating the following video that showcases the focus of this thread and thanks most to Scott Chen for his invaluable ecological sanitation efforts - you are an inspiration!

Actully, I transport the urine to their orchards free of charge.

1.How many L of urine do you collect, and at what frequency do you collect it (e.g. weekly or monthly?)

The are about 2000 tons of urine each year. I collect the urine when i need it or the urine tank is full.

2.What is the distance that you have to transport the urine from the schools to your orchards?

Each year, my total milage is around 40,000 km for collecting the urine from the 31 schools.
The average is around 40 km to each school from my orchard.

3.How big are the urine storage tanks at the schools? Do you have additional urine storage tanks at your own premises? (and therefore, how long is the urine stored for in total?)

The urine tank is 60 cubic meters for the first 10 school toilets and 60 for the other 21 toilets. I do not have additional storage tank at my premises.

4.If it's so profitable how come there haven't been other businesses copying you?

Yes, some people do hope to copy my method for growing fruits and vegetables but they do not have the urine.

5.Who is responsible for maintaining those school UDDTs and are they doing a good job with it? Are the toilets clean?

The school management is responsible for maintaining the toilets. Only few toilets are clean.

5.Is the urine sometimes contaminated with some faeces? Do you do any spot checks on the quality of the urine? Perhaps at least visual spot checks?

Yes, it is sometimes mixed with the faeces because of the misuse of the toilets.
I do have spot checks quite often when I visit the schools.

6.Is it legal in your part of China to use urine as fertiliser on this large scale, or is it better not to ask anyone for permission and to simply do it? What is the opinion of the local authorities about your activities?

It is legal to use the urine as fertiliser and it is the common sense. The local authorities are not interested in my work at all. But over 30 news media have covered my story during last two years making me famous in China.

7. Why does Soho China not want to build more school UDDTs if these school UDDTs are so successful?

Because the school management does not like the toilet at all. Our schools are part of the government organization and the masters are only working to the government. They do not want to spend time on training the students.

8, as the profitability, i did have a profit of 800,000 RMB from the business except the transportation fee and purchasing cost... during last 3 years.
best regards
Scott

Dear Scott,

Thanks a lot for this update. It is nice to hear of such success stories from time to time!! (I have moved this thread from the category on "urine diversion" to this category on "produtive sanitation").

My questions:

1. How many L of urine do you collect, and at what frequency do you collect it (e.g. weekly or monthly?)
2. What is the distance that you have to transport the urine from the schools to your orchards?
3. How big are the urine storage tanks at the schools? Do you have additional urine storage tanks at your own premises? (and therefore, how long is the urine stored for in total?)
4. If it's so profitable how come there haven't been other businesses copying you?
5. Who is responsible for maintaining those school UDDTs and are they doing a good job with it? Are the toilets clean?
6. Is the urine sometimes contaminated with some faeces? Do you do any spot checks on the quality of the urine? Perhaps at least visual spot checks?
7. Is it legal in your part of China to use urine as fertiliser on this large scale, or is it better not to ask anyone for permission and to simply do it? What is the opinion of the local authorities about your activities?
8. Why does Soho China not want to build more school UDDTs if these school UDDTs are so successful?

By the way, the exchange rate between Chinese RMB and Eur is
1.00 EUR = 8.4 RMB

Therefore your income in 2013 was about 110,000 Eur. Is this equal to your profit or is that before taking away expenditure for transport and staff time? Oh, OK, you mentioned 800,000 RMB profit in a 3-year time period, so that is approx. 80,000 Eur per 3 years, or 27,000 Eur per year. That sounds pretty good to me.

I wonder if your case could be an interesting case for the business models that are beeing analysed in the VUNA project here:
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/98-res...mit=12&start=12#7387

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hello Arno:
Yes, you are right. The farmers and furit dealers are quite either jealous or admiring about my success.I do not use Ecological instead of Organic as the label to market my products because we have a national organi standard which is quiet mechanical to me. I do not like it and i do not touch it.
I did use some pesticides but not so much. The market of these products are unlimited since there are too many rich people and too many food scandals. People are scared about the food safety. The demand for the urine is unlimited around China. Actually, the 31 school toilet blocks can only supply half of one villiage orchards. Soho China has no intention to built more toilets so far but the directors often use his influence to tell my story.

Hello Scott
This is a remarkably successful project and should be the envy of most farmers and food wholesalers. Is it the organic label linked to urine collected from schools that is the main selling point. Any pesticides being used? The fruit is of high quality. What do you think the size of the market is for this in China? How much more urine could be consumed by the farmers in Gansu province if it were made available. Is Soho planning other similar projects?
Regards
--Arno
SEI