Urine is being used to make eco-friendly beer.
Researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) collected 20,000 litres of the watery fluid from portaloos set up for the Walpurgis Night celebrations – an annual Christian event celebrated on April 30 and the night of May 1.
The gallons of urine were taken to SLU, where 95 per cent of the water was removed so it could be turned into a concentrate before a research firm converts it into a fertiliser that can be used on 1.5 hectares of arable land.
And in 2027, beer lovers will be able to drink the beer made from the malting barley grown on the land fertilised with the Walpurgis Night celebrations attendees’ urine.
Björn Vinnerås, professor of cycle technology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, said: “The urine we collected a year ago was used three weeks ago, on a field on Gotland where malting barley is grown.
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“This corresponds to approximately three football fields, which is not much from an agricultural perspective, but it’s a start.”