Environmental Sustainability: Beer Barley Fertilized with Concert Urine, Denmark

In a case of using what's readily available, the largest northern European music festival, Denmark's Roskilde Festival, will collect festival-goers' urine from this year's event (now through July 4) and recycle it to fertilize fields of malting barley. 

The project is being called "from piss to pilsner," and it has the support of the Danish Agriculture & Food Council (DAFC).

If all works as planned, guests at the Roskilde Festival 2017 will drink cups of beer fertilized with their own urine, according to a release from the DAFC.

Rather than simply let portable bathrooms have an impact on the environment and sewage system in Roskilde, festival officials and the DAFC feel that environmental re-use will be a smart option, says Leif Neilsen, head of communication for the DAFC, in a release. "Beercycling is about changing our approach to waste, from being a burden to being a valuable resource... Beercycling will turn those many litres of urine into a resource," said the DAFC release.

Organizers hope to collect 6,604 gallons of urine from the festival-goers, reported the Guardian.

Urinals will also be placed near stages. Headliners include Florence and the Machine and Paul McCartney: "So we're hoping to collect some rock star pee as well," says Marie Grabow Westergaard from the DAFC, according to the Guardian.

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