Additional recordings to be posted as available: ​

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The History of New Alchemy, the Green Center and Urine Diversion

Hilda Maingay and Earle Barnhart, The Green Center 

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Peecycling: Home-scale and Community-scale

Hilda Maingay and Earle Barnhart, The Green Center 

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Seeing the Invisible: Educating About Water, Waste, and Nutrient Cycles

​Hayley Joyell Smith, Warren Wilson College, PHLUSH

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If you find yourself in the role of teaching others about urine diversion, you know it often requires more than explaining an alternative system—it means helping people understand the water and wastewater infrastructure they already use. This session is designed to support you in that educator role. We’ll look at strategies for making wastewater systems visible, approachable, and teachable, and then connect that to how urine diversion can keep nutrients out of waterways and return them to soils. We’ll highlight the Urban HydroLink, a hands-on, modular model of water supply and wastewater pathways that has been shown to effectively improve students’ mental models. In a Soils and Hydrology course, 95% of undergraduates improved their system diagrams, and recognition of water’s “return to the source” more than doubled. Educators at the Rich Earth Institute have adapted the model to demonstrate urine diversion, reporting that the tool helps learners see the interconnection between upstream and downstream communities, the benefits of nutrient separation for reducing treatment plant loads, and the potential for reusing nutrients on farmland. Participants find it memorable, interactive, and imagination-sparking, opening possibilities for future educational tools and nutrient-recycling systems. Yes, you will have an opportunity to play with the Urban HydroLink:) This session will also set the stage for future work in developing a place-based educational program for Massachusetts. I will introduce some initial ideas and highlight how existing science education standards could be leveraged to integrate wastewater systems into curricula in ways that connect infrastructure, ecosystems, and communities.

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Hayley Joyell Smith is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Warren Wilson College and a member of the ASSET team. She works at the intersection of education, social science, and sustainable sanitation and develops tools that help learners visualize complex systems. She has a passion for international travel, where she likes to learn about toilet systems. Hayley is also a founding board member of PHLUSH, which stands for Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Human, the advocacy group for disaster sanitation preparedness and public toilet availability. 

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​25 Years of Gardening with Human Waste Fertilizers 

Hilda Maingay and Earle Barnhart, The Green Center 

 

 

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Bringing Wasted*'s urine derived products to market, wins and challenges 

Rachel Binstock, Wasted* 

​Over the past year, Wasted* PBC has expanded urine collection infrastructure through the deployment of custom-designed urinals and semipermanent toilets. We’ve scaled farm trials with new application methods aimed at reducing labor, including fertigation of hops and compost application. Our team has gathered new data on fertilizer composition, including expanded PFAS testing on both liquid and solid products. As we navigate regulatory hurdles, we’ve secured specialty fertilizer licenses in two additional states and are pursuing pathways to expand urine processing beyond Vermont. To inform commercialization, we’re developing unit economics for several urine-derived fertilizers.  Most importantly, Wasted* has conducted market research to understand how to build a bridge between what the industry can make and what growers of all kinds want and need in their fertilizer products.

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After 10 year of regenerative farming, farm education and living off-grid, Rachel went back to graduate school with the aim of scaling climate solutions. She now serves as Chief of Staff at Wasted*, working on their Labs team, operationalizing nutrient recovery. She leads their regulatory work, go-to-market strategy, and oversees fertilizer operations.

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Using diverted human urine to build long-term soil health

John Culpepper, Compost for Good 

In this talk we will focus on how to turn diverted human urine into a valuable soil amendment where: beneficial aerobic soil microbes are produced; pharmaceuticals are denatured; and where long-term stable organic acids are formed. It has been shown that when soils contain the full suite of beneficial microbes, farmers can reduce or eliminate fertilizers, reduce or eliminate irrigation, reduce or eliminate cultivation, increase soil percolation rates, increase soil water holding capacity, and reduce or eliminate pesticides. Reducing or eliminating these farming inputs results in higher profits to the farmer.

 

John Culpepper co-founded Compost for Good to help communities around the world to upcycle all appropriate organic materials to: reduce greenhouse gas emissions; keep resources in local communities; create business opportunities; build healthy soils; sequester carbon; help solve water quality issues; and lower the cost of food and fiber production. John has worked in education, farming, facilities management, research and more. Recently John has been working in the ecological sanitation area, and has developed a safe and efficient high temperature composting regimen to turn diverted human urine into a high value compost.

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​From Yellow to Blue: Exploring Indigo Cultivation and Fermentation with Liquid Gold

Rosi Olivan, The Putney School, itequiya lab

Exploring the potential of human urine as both a fertilizer for indigo plants and a reducing agent in pigment application. This presentation shares results from a pilot program of small-scale fertilization trials, alongside early findings to discuss pigment purity across fertilization treatment types. This project is a work in progress aimed at building a foundation for other indigo growers and dyers while creating educational materials to promote the urine reclamation process for alternative applications in fiber arts. The project examines historical practices, sustainable resource recovery, and dye science to ask: Can urine reclamation support local color production?

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​Rosi Olivan is a science teacher at the Putney School and a fiber artist at itequiya lab. She is dedicated to learning and teaching sustainable dye practices. Fun fact: Rosi has served as a volunteer and a board member at Rich Earth.

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