Roskilde, northern Europe’s largest music festival, has a crazy idea for festival-goers this year: “Don’t waste your piss. Farmers can turn it into beer again.”
In its attempt to go green, a Zealand, Denmark initiative is hoping to gather 25,000 liters of urine this year from attendees before the festival ends on July 4. Roskilde has so far seen 100,000+ festivalgoers, which is right around the perfect number needed to meet their desired “contributions”.
How does the festival hope to use the thousands of gallons of pee to create new, drinkable beer? The new campaign, which is called “from piss to pilsner,” is using specially designed storage tanks that will, once transported, fertilize malting barley for brewing beer in nearby fields.
Leif Nielson, a Roskilde partner from the Danish Agriculture and Food Council, said:
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“I think most people can see the reason and the fun behind making a personal contribution to beer brewing, and the fact that rock music is involved will help us get our message across.”
While Nielson is a huge fan of rock and roll, he believes that the initiative is doing something greater for the whole community and not just the festival.
“It’s about changing our approach to waste, from being a burden to being a valuable resource.”
As long as everything continues according to plan, rockers at Roskilde 2017 will be quenching their thirst with beer from the barley fertilized by this year’s festival-goers. Nielsen said:
“The huge amount of urine produced at festivals was having a negative impact on the environment and the sewage system. But beercycling will turn the urine into a resource.”
