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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Chloé Farand

‘This is not a hippy thing’: the startup recycling urine to make natural fertiliser

A tractor in a field spraying crops
VunaNexus’s mineral fertiliser, Aurin, is approved for use on all plants by the Swiss and French authorities. Photograph: Henry Arden/Getty Images/Image Source

When staff answer the call of nature at the European Space Agency’s headquarters in Paris, their urine is not simply flushed away – it is turned into something much more useful. While urine-diverting toilets are often associated with smelly festival loos, there is nothing bohemian about recycling nutrients from human pee, said David de Chambrier, the chief executive of VunaNexus.

The process isn’t so different from recovering minerals in used electronics.

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