For these Parisians, Produce starts with a Pee
On a Wednesday evening in France, Nicolas nestles two jugs of yellow liquid into his bike panniers and rides to a small warehouse where he’ll get produce from a local farmer. After he picks up carrots, greens and potatoes, Nicolas leaves something for the farmer: his urine. France has thousands of CSAs — community supported […]
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A team blog!
Who loves to write about eco-toilets, clean water, reusing urine, and growing food? Laura and Carrie! After connecting via the 2024 Rich Earth Institute’s Summit, we’ve teamed up to write this blog and share with you these possibilities for a better future. Laura Allen is a writer, teacher and water steward. She co-founded Greywater Action […]
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You flushed, they decked out City Hall: How this Oregon community grows wood from wastewater leftovers
From ancient times to modern-day, some places manage water and excreta in a smart way. Recently, I visited one — the Biocycle Farm in Eugene, Oregon. Flush the toilet in this town, and here’s a surprise: your contribution may be transformed into an eco-friendly building material — poplar trees. This climate-friendly practice recycles nutrients, keeps […]
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This building gets the gold: Here’s how it converts human urine into an eco-fertilizer
On a chilly day in February, Pat Lando gave me a tour of an amazing building — the PAE Living Building in Portland. Lando is the executive director of Recode and the co-founder of Nutrient Recovery Services where he works on building-scale nutrient and water recycling systems. In the PAE building, different systems recycle water […]
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A better way to go? Here’s 7 takeaways from a toilet museum
“Half the world needs a toilet while the other half needs a better one.” That’s according to the Bill and Melinda Gate’s Foundation. It’s critical the 3.5 billion people who currently lack safe sanitation options get them. But what’s wrong with the rest of our toilets? A few things, it turns out: Flush toilets […]
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