back to article Restaurant takes the piss, recycles it as fertiliser

A Melbourne restaurant is collecting its patrons' urine and turning it into fertiliser. Smart Planet reports that tulip farmer and green installation guru Joost Bakker's latest Greenhouse pop up restaurant has purpose-built loos which take the piss for later re-use. The restaurant relies on canola oil and the wee is used to …

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  1. Charles Manning
    Pint

    You don't buy beer

    You rent it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    25 deposits

    Covers a whole hectare?

    Yes, I know, lots of old stinky canola oil added, but still... a whole hectare? Either it's not a lot of help (no quantization on that "help") or those are some bodacious bladders making contributions.

    1. The Indomitable Gall

      It's the nitrogen stoopid.

      There isn't much of value in urine, but it does provide nitrogen in a soil-friendly form. At normal concentration, urine can singe and burn plants, but water it down, and it becomes a good source of nourishment. My big brother used to wee in the garden after a night on the juice, and we got nice thick green patches out of it, because it was adequately diluted when it came out.

  3. Qu Dawei
    Headmaster

    already well-known and well-used

    Keeping pee, and using it (suitably diluted) for fertiliser is an old trick used by generations of UK gardeners. In my experience, the most use of it is to help compost heaps get going. However, when in the UK, our family used to use it diluted to water various vegetables, and got very good results from it; our moolies (very large radishes), onions, and beans did very well on it, and the garden flowers also benefitted. It gave a whole new insight into the euphemistic phrase: "I have to water my onions".

    1. Andy Jones
      Joke

      Re: already well-known and well-used

      Yet when I took a drunken dump in our neighbours strawberry patch they called the police. You just can't win!

  4. Tom 7

    Cut out the canola

    just tin it and call it lager!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Piss was used to make gunpowder...

    ...at one time, but at least now we use it for fertiliser. Big improvement, nyet? I mean, in the future it will make at least as much difference as Soylent Green, right?

    1. Lee Dowling Silver badge

      Re: Piss was used to make gunpowder...

      Urine was the major mordant for centuries - up to and including people being paid to collect buckets of it from households in some major UK cities in the last century. A mordant helps dye stick to a fabric.

      You know tweed? Proper tweed smells of pee when it rains, as did the clothing used in the House of Lords up until the previous decade. There's a reason for that.

      1. Graham Marsden

        Re: Piss was used to make gunpowder...

        It goes back much further than that: Urine has been used in leather tanning since time immemorial and the Romans collected it to distill for the ammonia to use in their laundries.

        1. Jimbo 6

          Re: Romans collected it to use in their laundries

          They also used it to brush their teeth.

          No wonder they had very little sense of humour.

  6. Darkwolf

    But, as the BOFH would

    ask, are they paying proper licensing of the IP to the owners of the piss?

    After all, the piss contains more then just the components of the original conola oil, and it is very important to bodily waste in the public domain.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/03/09/bofh_protecting_bodily_waste/

    1. TRT Silver badge

      Re: But, as the BOFH would

      I. P.

      Lol.

    2. collinsl Bronze badge

      Re: But, as the BOFH would

      I agree, if I were to attend this venue I would want at least money off my food as I am providing a donation to the company to keep their fertiliser costs down. This should lead to cheaper food. This is the only reason I would be willing to surrender my I.P. rights to the company, and without this I wouldn't donate.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    WTF

    Gives a whole new dimension to :

    "Someone's taking the piss."

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Meh....

    Redditch have had a WET system for years that also handles the poo poo...

    http://redditch.whub.org.uk/cms/leisure-and-culture/arrow-valley-park/arrow-valley/sewage-treatment.aspx

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Works for me

    I say piss-on-it.

  10. Tim Bates

    Nothing new...

    My wees grow cotton - have done for about 10 years. It doesn't "close the loop" as greenies like to say, but it does remove waste from the rivers, and reduces the required water and fertiliser at the farm.

    http://www.narrabri.nsw.gov.au/index.cfm?page_id=1145

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