Urine is Good for Green Building

Your urine could be the answer to a cheap, sustainable way of putting up shelter in poor areas of the world, without the need to cut any tree for timber or use precious water otherwise needed for drinking to make bricks.

You see, in many poor countries of the world, as it were in ancient Egypt, Sumeria, China, Japan and India, it is not uncommon to use animal waste and other by-products to build houses. Or plant materials like straw bales, bamboo, grass, reeds, sedges, and rattan, as well as plant fibers and leaves. Cow dung and goat skins are very valuable building materials, but human waste!

In ground-breaking findings by Sheffield University’s School of Architecture Professor, Jeremy Till, it has just been discovered that your urine is good for green building. Urea, the main ingredient of urine, has been known as an excellent binding agent, working even better than water. “They are sustainable in literal, temporal sense…some answers are found in unexpected places. Like the bladder. But are effective in their simplicity”.

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As part of work for Architects for Aid or A-4-A, the building environment charity, urine bricks were put to rigorous tests all which proved their toughness and durability. The study included sniff tests, crush tests, scratch tests, pounding with water jets and soaking tests and all showed the toughening effects of urine compared to water. Several hundred standardized bricks were made and dried and pummeled in various controlled situations.

Inspiration came from A-4-A’s Dr Victoria Harris who had seen the dire shelter situation in Darfur, a part of the Sudan known for its Janjaweed militia, genocide and refugees than its scarce timber or water.

Urine refuses to be underrated in its super-renewable attributes. Like Nanologix’s “Hydrogen Bioreactor” seemingly too far-fetched in an Amy Winehouse showstopper, Urinetown is more than a satirical comedy show in a Broadway theater.

Can urine be part of viable, sustainable built solutions? If you are convinced and believe the answer is yes, sooner than later, you could be selling your penny’s worth of pee for green building and helping in conserving the environment.

Resources: Live Projects, Sheffield Live Project 2007 Blog

Photo Credit: Eürodäna via Flickr

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