Most people seem to agree that something needs to be done to halt global climate change and the depletion of natural resources. But do we need to go so far as drinking our own urine in order to conserve resources? Well, not exactly (though we’re oddly no longer surprised by even more outrageous green manifestos). However, New York artists Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray of Submersible Design have created an installation called drinkpeedrinkpeedrinkpee that is meant to make us consider our own bodies as ecosystems, including our waste. The show follows the circular path of, well, pee from a toilet to a water fountain, stopping along the way to show how nutrients in urine that are harmful to aquatic ecosystems can be extracted and used as fertilizer instead. The artists state, “In this work we can see our urine become a source of overfeeding, mutation, and disease or a fertilizer in a new lifecycle economy. Waste can spur death or growth. ” And as far as actually drinking pee goes… how about feeding your house plants? At the installation, which exhibits at Eyebeam, 540 W. 21st St. in New York from March 13 - April 19, with an opening on March 13th from 6-8 p.m., you also receive a free DIY urine-to-fertilizer kit, created by Swiss EAWAG Aquatic Research.

In brief, the kit allows users to turn nitrogen and phosphorus in urine into an easy-to-filter sediment that’s good fertilizer—for, say, that cherry tomato plant on your porch—but creates fish-killing algae when it concentrates in open water. Besides making for a reaction-inducing blog post headline, creating a process of better filtering wastewater is big news these days with so much public outcry over the recent AP story on pharmaceutical waste in public drinking water.

So do we suggest you drink your urine? Of course not. But peeing in the plants? Now that’s another story.

Let us know what you think (and report back if you go to the installation).

Thanks to CoolHunting for the lead.