This Summer, NPK Recovery has supported sustainability at three amazing festivals across the UK, collecting urine to be ‘wee-cycled’ into a sustainable fertiliser and engaging attendees about the power of their pee.
Green Gathering
Teaming up with PEEQUAL (the crew behind the female urinals!), operations lead Lucy and lead scientist Olivia ventured to the off-grid Green Gathering festival in Chepstow, South Wales.
Famous for its environmental credentials, the non-profit event featured solar powered discos and epic feats of reuse and recycling – including for the first time ever, urine recycling! The NPK team emptied all PEEQUALs across the festival site, transporting urine safely back to the NPK lab in Bristol for our recycling process.
All Points East
In London’s iconic Victoria park, All Point’s East invited NPK to be part of the impressive work the festival is doing to improve their impact on the environment. Supported by sustainability experts A Greener Future, and working with the excellent LS Events team, NPK emptied urine from PTL urinals. With the urinals being chemical free (a further win for sustainability!), the team seamlessly emptied all urinals onsite to reduce the waste that enters sewage. The product created from All Point’s East punters’ pee will be turned into a fertiliser that aims to regenerate the local area – for example growing back grass.
Green Man
With the glorious Welsh mountains of Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) national park towering over the main stage, Green Man festival is a magical event. Featuring a fantastic line-up of music, scientific wonders and inspiring speakers, the so-called ‘friendliest festival on earth’ lived up to its green name.
Bringing NPK’s magic to site for the first time, was lead scientist Olivia and trial coordinator George Barnsley, who were invited to collect urine from ComPOOst and PEEQUAL toilets – saving the precious nutrients in urine to create a fertiliser for trees. The fertiliser produced from urine collected at Green Man will be used as part of a Forestry Commission backed trial to grow native trees on the edge of Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), less than 10 miles from the festival site.
Green Man has a big focus on scientific discoveries, and learning opportunities for all ages. Olivia and George were delighted to present a ‘Wee 2 Tree’ stall in Einstein’s Garden onsite, where festival goers were excited to learn their wee was being used for good, and took the opportunity to engage with the science behind NPK’s urine to fertiliser technology.
Looking ahead to 2027
For events planning their 2027 sanitation set up, looking for a new way to engage audiences with sustainability, or just looking to learn more about how our process works – we’d love to hear from you – contact hello@npkrecovery.com
