dws-sail-2015-sail-in-parade-770pxMale visitors of Sail Amsterdam 2015 massively respond to the request by the city's water utility to pee at special locations for their urine to be collected and turned into fertilizer.

The Amsterdam water utility targets to harvest 100,000 liter of urine during the five-day festival.

Sail Amsterdam is the world’s largest free nautical festival, featuring more than 600 tall ships. This year's event started on 19 August and is expected to attract 1.7 million visitors.

dws-sail-urine-uriniors-350pxThree innovative urban greening projects
The pee is treated in a special phosphate factory that turns the 100 m3 urine into 140 m3 struvite fertilizer.

The struvite is used for three innovative urban greening projects by the Amsterdam Rainproof platform.

These projects involve a blue-green roof of a business complex, the garden and the roof of a hostel, and a vertical garden against the wall of a primary school.

Green spaces on roofs and walls absorb rain to prevent floods. In addition they cool the city and make it more livable.

dws-sail-2015-urine-campagne-350pxValue of urine
Urine contains phosphate, an increasingly scarce resource used to make fertilizer. It is expected that the natural phosphate resources will be exhausted in 30 years. As phosphate is important for the global food production, recovery of phosphate is inevitable.

Amsterdam's water company Waternet and water authority Amstel, Gooi and Vecht recover phosphate from sewage in a special phosphate factory since 2013.

This news item is based on a release on the websites of AGV and Amsterdam Rainproof (both in Dutch only).

More information
Waternet
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
+31 889 39 40 00
www.waternet.nl/about-waternet

Amsterdam Rainproof
info@rainproof.nl
www.rainproof.nl (in Dutch only)

Amsterdam Sail 2015
www.sail.nl/EN-2015

Sail-in parade on the first day of Amsterdam Sail 2015.