Recycling urine answer to phosphorus supply

Recycling urine may be the answer to a looming global shortage of phosphorus, an Australian researcher says.

Associate Professor Cynthia Mitchell, of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), says the world's deposits of phosphorus are due to run out in about 50 years.



And she says recycling the 500 litres of urine each person produces a year is the solution.

"Urine is the most concentrated source of phosphorus," she says. "At the moment we dilute that through our sewage system and send it out to the ocean.
"In the industrialised world we must start moving to a resource-recovery approach rather than the current waste-treatment approach."

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