Liquid Gold

Every time we flush, we send a valuable resource down the drain: phosphorus, one of the essential building blocks of life and a key ingredient in the fertiliser that grows the world's food, along with nitrogen and potassium.

Meanwhile, we mine phosphate rock and potash, and generate climate pollution to manufacture ammonia (rich in nitrogen) to produce industrial fertiliser - essential for growing food to feed a hungry planet

But what if, instead of extracting our fertiliser in ways that damage the planet, we harnessed the waste our own bodies produce, feeding it back into the food chain, where it belongs?

In this episode, host Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis traces how humans went from managing waste locally to flushing it away without a second thought. And with researchers Jordan Roods and Kerry Tozer, she explores the growing movement to recover nutrients from urine and turn them back into fertiliser — from university labs in Sydney, to a redesigned toilet prototype, and to a community-scale ‘peecycling’ program in Vermont.

Voices

Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis — host; health and social researcher

Nicola Cama — historian, City of Sydney

Michelle Maloney — legal scholar, advocate for earth-centred governance

Kerry Tozer — doctoral researcher, Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS

Jordan Roods — doctoral researcher, Institute for Sustainable Futures, UTS

Dana Cordell — associate professor, UTS; research supervisor to Kerry and Jordan

Cara Beal — professor of environmental science and health; director, Cities Research Institute, Griffith University

Abe Noe-Hayes — Rich Earth Institute, Vermont

Have your say

Jordan and Kerry have put together a short anonymous survey to hear what listeners think about urine recycling – "peecycling"! – and the problems it could solve. The survey link is in the show notes on the episode page. Participants who share their contact details go into a draw to win one of three $50 AUD Visa gift cards. Please make sure you read the participant information sheet and complete the consent requirements before completing the survey or uploading any audio or video that could identify you.

Try it for yourself

You can purchase your own bottle of eco-friendly urine-derived fertiliser to sprinkle on your plants via this link: https://www.nicegreentech.com/products

Further reading

You can find plenty of fact sheets and articles about the future of urine recycling and a circular nutrient economy at the NiCE Hub website.

You can learn more about the Rich Earth Institute here.

Credits

Host: Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis, with Jordan Roods and Kerry Tozer

Producers: Britta Jorgensen and Celine Teo-Blockey

Sound Engineering: Melissa May

Additional Music: Om Bhandari

Cover Art: Alexandra Morris

Editorial Support: Jane Curtis, Michelle Ransom-Hughes, Tamson Peach, Rachael Cusick

Executive Producer, Impact Studios: Sarah Gilbert

Thanks also to: Professor Ho Kyong Shon, Dr Ibrahim El Saliby, Associate Professor Jan-Olof Drangert, Professor Cara Beal, Dr Michelle Maloney, Dr Haley Joyell Smith, Gary Leeson, Mark Dunn, and Ed Hickson.

Liquid Gold is an Impact Studios production.