The future of fertilizer? Pee, says this Brattleboro institute

The institute, its partners and others in the sustainability industry see the practice — dubbed “peecycling” — as a cheap, easy and less-destructive method than synthetic fertilizer.

By Kate Kampner
April 29, 2024, 6:01 am

Kate Kampner is a reporter with Community News Service, part of the University of Vermont’s Reporting & Documentary Storytelling program.

When Peter Stickney walks along his cow paddocks in the morning, he notes the scattered patches of greener grass across the pasture. He knows what this means: It’s where his cows have peed.

So when the Rich Earth Institute, a Brattleboro organization focused on turning human urine into fertilizer, approached him to be a farm partner, Stickney said it was a no-brainer.

Stickney manages the Elm Lea Farm at The Putney School, a boarding high school in the Windham County town of the same name. For the past few years, alongside six other farms in Vermont and the Northeast, Stickney has been receiving treated urine from Rich Earth Institute to spray across the farmland at Elm Lea.

The institute, its partners and others in the sustainability industry see the practice — dubbed “peecycling” in national headlines — as a cheap, easy and less-destructive method for fertilizing plants than synthetic fertilizer and as a way for people to rethink their views on whether human waste should really go to waste.

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