News / Environment
Pee power to light up Glastonbury
The Pee Power toilet that turns urine into electricity is taking centre stage in the Stone Circle at Glastonbury Festival for the second year running.
Developed by UWE engineers and Oxfam the toilets are being trialed in the field before they are sent to Africa and India later this year.
The specially adapted urinal first appeared at Glastonbury last year but this time the team has created a unit twice as big and capable of accommodating up to 25 people at once.
is needed now More than ever
The toilet will contribute to the facilities needed on site but researchers say they want to excite and inform” festival goers about a technology in its relative infancy that has the potential to change the lives of those living in countries where sanitation and electricity are off grid”.
The unit is powered by urine fed through microbial fuel cells (MFCs) that generate enough electricity to light up the inside of the urinal.
Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos, Director of the Bristol BioEnergy Centre at UWE Bristol, said: “The festival presents us with the opportunity to trial the technology, along the lines of its robustness and cleaning capability, in terms of the sheer numbers of people and therefore the amount of urine.
“The urinal at the festival this year is going to be built to the size we plan to use for refugee camps. We have also developed the microbial fuel cell unit so that it is much smaller and yet delivering the pee power with more power.
“The benefits of a stand-alone system like the version we have designed is that it provides lighting that can be used in any environment and in any conditions with electricity being generated continuously from the waste without having to rely on the grid or other fossil fuel based technology.”
Andy Bastable, water sanitation manager for Oxfam, said, “In most refugee camps around the world, and in poor slum areas, light is needed at night. The microbial fuel cells light up patches in the camp and this is important in regard to women’s safety at night. Another bonus of this technology is the ability to charge mobile phones. There is potential for us to develop charging centres that would be particularly beneficial in refugee camps where families get split up.
“The project is in quite early days in terms of the field trials and Oxfam is hoping to work with the Bristol BioEnergy Centre not just on investigating the lighting inside toilets but working towards lighting a six metre radius around the toilets so we have street lighting based on pee power.”
Glastonbury organisers have said that it is vital that festival goers do not pee on the land as it pollutes the river than runs through the site and harms fish and other wildlife.
Read more: Pee power electricity for disaster zones
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
