Your recycled pee may be better for crops than synthetic fertilizer

Question

On the website Popular Science under the article "Your recycled pee me be better for corps than synthetic fertilizer" author Andrew Paul claims that there are many benefits to swapping out artificial additives in common fertilizer for human urine. The article pulls research from a research article titled "Sanitized human urine3 (oga) as a fertilizer auto-innovation from women farmers in Niger". The study suggests that urine contained phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen, which are widely used for growing crops. The research concludes with the fact that human urine might be better if it's stored and then used so as not to disrupt the soil's natural biome. I decided to do a web search to see if any other study supports the claim being made in this article and found that all other findings point to either yes or that it depends. On the website evergreenseeds.com, under the article "Is Human Urine Good for Plants? Unveiling the Myths and Facts in Gardening" author Meyers Guven states that yes it can be used as fertilizer, In addition, the fact the sources used in this article were taken from a University of Birmingham PhD candidate in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, its is safe to say that the article was meant to inform and not to decide. Its writing mostly consisted of evidence from the cited source other than personal opinion, which further added to the validity of the claim. One thing that's iffy about the article is that if someone just read the title without reading the research, they might be persuaded to believe that human urine is better than fertilizer and might end up killing their plants or ruining their soil. 

Comments

While it’s true that urine contains nutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium—which plants need—there are some potential risks that should be highlighted as well. For example, excessive use of urine without proper dilution can lead to over-fertilization, causing damage to the plants and soil. The concentration of nitrogen in urine can burn plants if it’s too concentrated, especially when used without storing or diluting it properly. This can be a concern for gardeners or farmers who might read an article like this and rush to use urine without considering how to manage its application effectively.