The Rich Earth Institute hopes you’ll stop wasting your waste.

The research and education center in Brattleboro, Vermont, hosted the first of two sessions dubbed “Peecycling in the Valley: Community Conversations for Franklin County, MA” on Thursday to explain the way recycled human urine can help farmers increase the yield of nutrient-rich crops and to solicit input from attendees. Education Director Julia Cavicchi and Operations Director Arthur Davis led a slideshow presentation to share some of peecycling’s benefits and advocate for investment in the process.

According to Cavicchi, sewer and septic systems are designed to allow people to “flush and forget” their waste. She explained that while that is a necessary function, nutrients and contaminants are also released when you push that toilet handle or button. The systems in most of this area send contents to the Long Island Sound, where nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus can fertilize harmful algal blooms that can cause neurotoxins to accumulate in shellfish. Cavicchi also said deoxygenated water kills fish.

However, she said, recycled urine can be treated and applied to farmland to grow crops that are eaten by people and expelled once again through urine in a never-ending cycle. She said the way life exists today crops are fertilized, grown, eaten and expelled as waste that pollutes the environment.

“We envision reconnecting this cycle,” Cavicchi said.

She also mentioned toilet flushing wastes otherwise clean water. In fact, Americans lose 900 billion gallons of clean, drinkable water every year by flushing away urine.

Cavicchi said urine contains most of the nutrients and half of the pharmaceuticals in domestic wastewater — and those pharmaceuticals can also effect fish physiology, producing detrimental results for the food chain.

The Rich Earth Institute has studied peecycling for six years in collaboration with partners. Cavicchi said a human excretes enough nutrients in their urine each day to fertilize enough wheat to produce a loaf of bread. She told the dozen or so attendees at Thursday’s talk that she has eaten delicious sweet corn that was fertilized with urine.

Urine can be collected in collectors and depots, as well as via residential and public installations and urine-diverting portable toilets. This can be done at both the home and community levels.

“Very small amounts do matter,” Davis said.

Urine must be pasteurized by being heated to 176 degrees Fahrenheit (80 degrees Celsius) for 90 seconds before it can be applied to soil.

Cavicchi and Davis said the Rich Earth Institute is looking for a coalition of partners to create a project design to apply for Long Island Sound Futures Fund planning grants that would finance projects to mitigate nutrient pollution. The organization is also interested in recruiting farm partners to trial urine fertilization for a wide range of crops.

The Rich Earth Institute’s Urine Nutrient Reclamation Program, billed as the first and largest community-scale program in the United States, reportedly collects 12,000 gallons of urine annually and has conserved 2.3 million gallons of clean water since 2012.

A peecycling community interest form is available at tinyurl.com/PeecycleNearMe.

Avenues for donating cash or urine to the Rich Earth Institute are accessible at bit.ly/3Okf9dM.

Another remote session of “Peecycling in the Valley: Community Conversations for Franklin County, MA” is slated for 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 10. Visit tinyurl.com/P4FranklinCounty to register.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.

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