Product Description

Every day, we urinate nutrients that can fertilize plants that could be used for beautiful landscapes, food, fuel, and fiber. Instead, these nutrients are flushed away, either to be treated at high cost or discharged to waters where they overfertilize and choke off aquatic life.

Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants tells you how urine—which contains most of the nutrients in domestic wastewater and usually carries no disease risk—can be utilized as a resource. Starting with a short history of urine use—from ritual to medicinal to even culinary—and a look at some unexpected urinals, Liquid Gold shows how urine is used worldwide to grow food and landscapes, while protecting the environment, saving its users the cost of fertilizer, and reconnecting people to the land and the nutrient cycles that sustain them. That's real flower power!

Liquid Gold details three ways to use urine hygienically and productively for plant growth, with studies that show the science behind this practice. Several advocates of urine diversion and their gardens are profiled, demonstrating that using urine for fertilizer is a feasible, safe, and cost-saving way to prevent pollution and save on fertilizer costs.

Whimsical drawings by Malcolm Wells (world-renowned architect, artist, and author of several books, including The Earth-Sheltered Home, Classic Architectural Birdhouses, Recovering America, InfraStructures, and How to Build an Underground House) throughout the book make this a must for every bathroom library, a great gift for gardeners (and anyone who urinates), and an enlightening problem-solver for environmental planners dealing with the nutrient pollution of water.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #121743 in Books
• Published on: 2004-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

About the Author
Carol Steinfeld is projects director for Ecowater Projects, a nonprofit project that informs the public about ecological wastewater management solutions. She is the co-author of The Composting Toilet System Book and Reusing the Resource: Adventures in Ecological Wastewater Recycling. Her articles have appeared in The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Natural Home Magazine and many other publications.

Customer Reviews

urine charge and urine good hands with this book
This little gem of a book is both an informative source of about all things urine - including interesting historical attitudes and uses as well as modern environmental aspects - in addition to being a very fun read due to the amusing diagrams and sharp prose. Both the professional wastewater expert and the casual nature lover will find much knowledge and enjoyment in these pages. Because of this, Liquid Gold would be the perfect "stocking stuffer" gift for the environmentalist in your house this upcoming holiday season!

Practical advice for a world of scarce resources.
The is a smart, thoughtful book on an important subject. Despite the cartoon cover, the author approaches the use and disposal of urine in a practical and user friendly way. She presents convincing scientific information supporting the healthful use of urine for growing plants. Also, she gives good information on composting toilets. This is a timely subject for two reasons: first, the recapture of the nitrogen and other resources that are contained in the urine. Second: the disposal of urine without polluting drinking water. Like the Humanure book, this book makes the important point that the use of pure water to flush wastes away into the sewer system is a very poor use of very scarce resources.

Highly recommend.

This book is FUN!
For anyone interested in this sort of thing "Practicality". This book is fun and interesting. I loved it. Very Easy read. Lots of techniques used around the world on urine separating toilents; along with ideas on how to create you own urinals. I acually made one after reading this book and am using it as liquid fertilizer in my yard. The design is so clean and out of the way that not even my wife was bothered by it!