The sustainability show that's opening at Eyebeam Gallery
tomorrow night could not be more timely, particularly the installation by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, two artists and collaborators who also have a company called Submersible Design.

Their installation, DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee is a project about our bodies as part of larger ecosystems. The project includes an installation and a DIY kit that allows you to turn your pee into fertilizer. The installation will be on view and the DIY kits will be available at Eyebeam for the FEEDBACK exhibition from March 13 - April 19.

Their Artist Statement:
What happens when we think of our bodies as their own ecosystems? Are they open or closed ecosystems? Where do we draw the boundaries? Before we take medication, do we ask ourselves how it will affect our internal organs, our friendly bacteria? What is our medication's future, beyond our bodies, in the sewage system and out in the waterways we swim in and eventually drink? What are the possible futures of our personal waste? What do sentient ecosystems eat and drink?

In this work we can see our urine become a source of overfeeding, mutation, and disease or a fertilizer in a new lifecycle economy.

Just this week, the Associate Press released a report that has me filtering my water twice. We're drinking the drugs from each other's pee. Two days ago, AP published the story Traces of Sedatives in NYC Water By Jeff Donn. It states, "Research studies have turned up minute amounts of more than 15 drugs or their byproducts in several pristine-looking rivers, a reservoir, and aqueducts feeding the country's biggest water system.

Though barely measurable, these pharmaceuticals are present in a variety worthy of a medicine cabinet: drugs for aches, infections, seizures and high blood pressure; hormones for menopause; the active ingredient in a popular sedative; and caffeine -- all bound for the city that never sleeps."

But it's not just New York City that's all hopped up on their neighbors anti-depressants and estrogen. In fact, ABC.com released an article that says The AP's investigative team found traces of drugs in 24 of the 62 major metropolitan water systems it checked.

Rebecca and Britta studied the work of the Swiss scientists at EAWAG Aquatic Research who found:

Although urine makes up only 1% of the total volume of wastewater, it accounts for 50-80% of the nutrient content. Nutrients have to be removed by resource-intensive processes at wastewater treatment plants. In the absence of these processes, nutrient discharges pose a risk of eutrophication - threatening in particular coastal waters and fish stocks. Many problematic substances, such as residues of medicines or endocrine disrupters, also enter wastewater via urine and may subsequently be released into the environment. The Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) has now shown that separate collection and treatment of urine could make significant contributions to water pollution control and nutrient recycling worldwide . . .

Novaquatis tested various methods of processing urine. Ideally, treatment should permit recycling of nutrients as fertilizers and, at the same time, removal of problematic micropollutants. For example, 98% of the phosphorus in urine can be recovered by precipitation with magnesium. The product - struvite - is an attractive fertilizer, free of pharmaceuticals and hormones. In Switzerland, nutrients from human urine could serve as substitutes for at least 37% of the nitrogen and 20% of the phosphorus demand that is currently met by imported artificial fertilizers.

What's the problem with urine in wastewater?

While urine accounts for less than 1% of total wastewater volume, it contains 50-80% of all the nutrients in wastewater. Many micropollutants, i.e. residues of pharmaceuticals and hormones from human metabolism, also enter wastewater via urine. On average, for all medicines and hormones ingested, 60-70% of the active ingredient is excreted in the urine.

85-90% of the nitrogen and 50-80% of the phosphorus are concentrated in the urine. These nutrients are desirable in agriculture, but not in waterbodies. It may therefore make sense to separate urine from wastewater and use it for fertilizer production."

So I'm going to Eyebeam on Thursday night. I'll purify my pee before flushing it if you purify yours. FYI: The fertilizer that comes from urine is supposed to be good for fruit trees.