Flushing Liquid Gold

Do you flush your urine down the loo? You do? Shame on you. So do I. Shame on me, when I could, but don't, use it for valuable purposes, such as:
  • soaking my tired dry feet in it so the skin becomes baby smooth
  • removing grease from my clothes (like the Romans until they got soap from the Germans)
  • making my home-made bread rise and my beer foam
  • making fireworks or other explosives
  • making an emergency gas mask like the soldiers in the trenches at Ypres (actually not a good idea - the reaction with ammonia just made things worse)
  • using it as a mordant to prepare cloth for dyeing
  • using it to remove hair from dead animal skins
I will let you into a secret. Urine from someone living with me is occasionally (and discreetly) used as a garden compost accelerant. It's effective and much cheaper than anything you might buy in the garden centre. I don't contribute because our compost bins are too tall for me. I just remain so grateful for the invention of the Water Closet, even if it does waste so much liquid gold.


Listening to an interview with Sally Magnusson on BBC Radio 4  last week was what got me thinking about all this. Sally Magnusson has written a book about the subject, 'The Life of Pee' published last month.From her I leant that according to information from The Welsh National Wool Museum (Carmarthan), Methodist urine was worth more than non-Methodist urine. This is because Methodists didn't drink alcohol. The urine of teetotallers cleaned woollen cloth better. One lives and learns.

Comments

  1. Unknown25 November 2010 at 19:12

    My day needed this; thank you.

    That all said, my pee is probably 30% proof these days so if anyone wants to hold a Tasting Session for fundraising purposes, buzz me. I'll start to bottle it all now

    ...would my kid's pee be the wee-equivalent of veal [ethical veal, of course]?

    If wee is the new gold, would the man in the little stand in my shopping centre offering cash for gold mind if I widdled all over his scales?

    I am much cheered; thanks again

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  2. Nancy Wallace26 November 2010 at 08:37

    Cheered to have cheered you David. I think wee is not new gold but the old gold we no longer value. There were people who used to make a living by collecting buckets from households and selling the contents to tanners, walkers, fullers, dyers etc. Not sure how they certified the Methodist products though. Some of my Scottish ancestors were among the people who bought the stuff - hence my special interest!

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