Technology Marches On

Human urine bricks invented by South African students

This gives a new slant on the saying: “Shit a brick.” I guess “Piss a brick” just doesn’t sing.

From left: Dr Dyllon Randall and his students, Vukheta Mukhari and Suzanne Lambert holding the world’s first bio-brick made using human urine
The bricks initially smell of ammonia but the odor disappears after about 48 hours

Human urine has been used to create environmentally friendly bricks by university students in South Africa.

They combined urine with sand and bacteria in a process that allows the bricks to solidify at room temperature.

“It’s essentially the same way that coral is made in the ocean,” Dyllon Randall, their supervisor at the University of Cape Town, told the BBC.

Regular bricks need to be baked in high-temperature kilns that produce large amounts of carbon dioxide.