North Quabbin garlic festival has new twist: Urine to be recycled
By
Paula J. Owen
Correspondent
Posted Sep 4, 2017 at 8:13 PM
Updated Sep 5, 2017 at 8:35 AM
ORANGE – The festival that stinks may break a world record this year,
but not for garlic, the star of the show. This year, for the first
time, a mass collection of festivalgoers’ urine is planned at the North
Quabbin Garlic & Arts Festival, and it eventually will fertilize hay
in the very field the event is held on.
The 19th annual festival is planned for Sept. 23 and 24 at Forster’s Farm, 60 Chestnut Hill Road.
The all-volunteer-run, family-friendly event is held on a beautiful farm amid autumn foliage, says founder Deborah Habib, one of the founders of Seeds of Solidarity and the festival.
The festival, which prides itself on sustainable practices, attracts more than 10,000 from all over New England, yet only produces three bags of trash, Ms. Habib said. People use plant-based utensils that can be composted. Food scraps are composted too. Tables are made from local, sustainable wood, free water is given to attendees, and solar energy powers the main stage.
This year, the festival committee has added one more layer of recycling to the event. Ms. Habib said it will be the largest known collective urine diversion project in the world.
“I don’t think there is a category in (The Guinness Book of) World Records,” she said, laughing a little. “We have no estimate on how much will be produced, but we’ll find out. We’re aiming for 1,200 gallons. This has not been done before that we know of. It is significant.”
How will it work?
Would-be excreta contributors will enter porta-potties designated for urine only, she said.
Kim K. Nace, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Rich Earth Institute in Vermont, which will collect the urine and process it for use on the fields, said there are many benefits to the practice, including saving money and reducing the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that enters waterways.
“You don’t have to pay for the costs of hauling it to a sewerage
treatment plant,” Ms. Nace explained.
“And at the treatment plant, they don’t necessarily remove all the nutrients that end up in our rivers and waterways.”
Nitrogen and phosphorus, abundant in urine, cause algae blooms in waterways that choke out oxygen for the fish in a process called eutrophication. Urine has the majority of nutrients in it, she said, it is a much simpler substance to manage, and it doesn’t contain pathogens from disease associated with poor sanitization and is even used in wound sterilization around the world.
“We use it on hay in Vermont - about 5,000 to 7,000 gallons a year on two different farms – and it grows better or equal to (crops grown with) synthetic fertilizers, for sure,” she said.
Rich Earth Institute is researching human urine use for crop production, or pee-ponics, she said, and has studied what happens to crops like lettuce and carrots when it is used as a fertilizer.
What they found, she said, is that pharmaceutical residuals go into the plants in extremely small amounts.
“In order to get a cup-of-coffee worth of caffeine” from urine-fertilized lettuce, “you would have to eat a pound of lettuce every day for 2,000 years,” Ms. Nace said. “It is a minuscule amount. Our chemists who did the tests in the lab told us they would eat the food, and we trust them because they understand the level of quantities.”
However, public perception poses an obstacle to the use of human urine for crops, she said. So, how do they plan to overcome this at the festival?
“We have a strong educational outreach program funded through the
National Science Foundation to create good educational tools to explain
the value of capturing urine to use as fertilizer,” she said.
Much like a restroom attendant at fancy hotels, attendants will man the urine-only porta-potties at the festival to educate people about, ahem, how to do their business, and also let them know that their urine is going to a much better, purposeful place.
“Our bodies naturally separate and sequester feces,” she said. “The portable toilets are for pee only, but there will also be the regular, standard composting toilets for pee and poop with yucky blue water for people who don’t want to try this. We can use a lot less energy to manage human waste in a decentralized system that captures the nutrients and gets it to soil. Our water-based system is clearly not sustainable, and the flush toilet is an antiquated system that needs a new design.”
Besides the urine project, the festival will have more than 80 workshops that festivalgoers have come to love, says Ms. Habib, including sessions on sustainability, agriculture and the environment. New this year is a “climate action for all” demonstration with a metal welded globe for people to add messages of hope for the planet, Ms. Habib said, and at the end of each day, a parade with kids who made flags.
Sustainability has been part of the core values of the festival since the beginning, Ms. Habib said.
“We weave in elements of environmental sustainability using resources in the community as well as simultaneously supporting and creating a stronger, more resilient community,” she said.
“A few people say, ‘I don’t like garlic.’ First, I respond, ‘Get over it,’ but you don’t have to like garlic to come to the festival. There are incredible workshops on energy conservation, renewable energy and agriculture to have an incredible weekend.”
The Sept. 23-24 festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, rain or shine. Admission is $5 for adults, or $8 for a weekend pass that includes all activities, workshops, numerous vendors and exhibitors, and live entertainment. Kids 12 and under get in free. Only service dogs are allowed.
For more information, visit http://garlicandarts.org.
The 19th annual festival is planned for Sept. 23 and 24 at Forster’s Farm, 60 Chestnut Hill Road.
The all-volunteer-run, family-friendly event is held on a beautiful farm amid autumn foliage, says founder Deborah Habib, one of the founders of Seeds of Solidarity and the festival.
The festival, which prides itself on sustainable practices, attracts more than 10,000 from all over New England, yet only produces three bags of trash, Ms. Habib said. People use plant-based utensils that can be composted. Food scraps are composted too. Tables are made from local, sustainable wood, free water is given to attendees, and solar energy powers the main stage.
This year, the festival committee has added one more layer of recycling to the event. Ms. Habib said it will be the largest known collective urine diversion project in the world.
“I don’t think there is a category in (The Guinness Book of) World Records,” she said, laughing a little. “We have no estimate on how much will be produced, but we’ll find out. We’re aiming for 1,200 gallons. This has not been done before that we know of. It is significant.”
How will it work?
Would-be excreta contributors will enter porta-potties designated for urine only, she said.
Kim K. Nace, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Rich Earth Institute in Vermont, which will collect the urine and process it for use on the fields, said there are many benefits to the practice, including saving money and reducing the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that enters waterways.
“And at the treatment plant, they don’t necessarily remove all the nutrients that end up in our rivers and waterways.”
Nitrogen and phosphorus, abundant in urine, cause algae blooms in waterways that choke out oxygen for the fish in a process called eutrophication. Urine has the majority of nutrients in it, she said, it is a much simpler substance to manage, and it doesn’t contain pathogens from disease associated with poor sanitization and is even used in wound sterilization around the world.
“We use it on hay in Vermont - about 5,000 to 7,000 gallons a year on two different farms – and it grows better or equal to (crops grown with) synthetic fertilizers, for sure,” she said.
Rich Earth Institute is researching human urine use for crop production, or pee-ponics, she said, and has studied what happens to crops like lettuce and carrots when it is used as a fertilizer.
What they found, she said, is that pharmaceutical residuals go into the plants in extremely small amounts.
“In order to get a cup-of-coffee worth of caffeine” from urine-fertilized lettuce, “you would have to eat a pound of lettuce every day for 2,000 years,” Ms. Nace said. “It is a minuscule amount. Our chemists who did the tests in the lab told us they would eat the food, and we trust them because they understand the level of quantities.”
However, public perception poses an obstacle to the use of human urine for crops, she said. So, how do they plan to overcome this at the festival?
Much like a restroom attendant at fancy hotels, attendants will man the urine-only porta-potties at the festival to educate people about, ahem, how to do their business, and also let them know that their urine is going to a much better, purposeful place.
“Our bodies naturally separate and sequester feces,” she said. “The portable toilets are for pee only, but there will also be the regular, standard composting toilets for pee and poop with yucky blue water for people who don’t want to try this. We can use a lot less energy to manage human waste in a decentralized system that captures the nutrients and gets it to soil. Our water-based system is clearly not sustainable, and the flush toilet is an antiquated system that needs a new design.”
Besides the urine project, the festival will have more than 80 workshops that festivalgoers have come to love, says Ms. Habib, including sessions on sustainability, agriculture and the environment. New this year is a “climate action for all” demonstration with a metal welded globe for people to add messages of hope for the planet, Ms. Habib said, and at the end of each day, a parade with kids who made flags.
Sustainability has been part of the core values of the festival since the beginning, Ms. Habib said.
“We weave in elements of environmental sustainability using resources in the community as well as simultaneously supporting and creating a stronger, more resilient community,” she said.
“A few people say, ‘I don’t like garlic.’ First, I respond, ‘Get over it,’ but you don’t have to like garlic to come to the festival. There are incredible workshops on energy conservation, renewable energy and agriculture to have an incredible weekend.”
The Sept. 23-24 festival runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, rain or shine. Admission is $5 for adults, or $8 for a weekend pass that includes all activities, workshops, numerous vendors and exhibitors, and live entertainment. Kids 12 and under get in free. Only service dogs are allowed.
For more information, visit http://garlicandarts.org.
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