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The Virtue Of Peeing In Your Backyard

Hey, hippies are doing it because it’s green: Founded in Brattleboro in 2011, the Rich Earth Institute is “dedicated to advancing and promoting the use of human waste as a resource.” In 2012, the group—started by a compost toilet expert and a former Peace Corp volunteer and educator—began collecting donated pee from a group of about 60 […]

Hey, hippies are doing it because it’s green:

Founded in Brattleboro in 2011, the Rich Earth Institute is “dedicated to advancing and promoting the use of human waste as a resource.” In 2012, the group—started by a compost toilet expert and a former Peace Corp volunteer and educator—began collecting donated pee from a group of about 60 locals. The urine was then transported by a private septic service company to Fair Winds Farm, a local livestock and vegetable farm where fieldwork is powered entirely by the farm’s team of five horses. There, farmer Jay Bailey applied the pee to his hay crops as a powerful mid-season fertilizer. The project was so successful that in 2013, about a hundred more donors signed up, bringing membership of the so-called “Urine Brigade” to around 175. Last year, the Brigade produced 3,000 gallons of pee. This year, Rich Earth co-founder Kim Nace—the former educator—expects volunteers to hand over 6,000 gallons and for two more hay farms to join up.

“It’s sort of taken off big time,” Kim said. “This is just a novel idea in people’s minds, and because of that, they’re extremely intrigued by it.”

Men, the next time the wife yells at you for peeing in the back yard, you ask her why she hates the Earth so much.

You’re welcome.

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