Roskilde Festival now recycles urine into beer to help the local environment

NORTHERN Europe’s largest music festival just collected the urine from over 100,000 attendees to make recycled beer. We’re serious.

29/07/2008 LIBRARY: A pint of beer is pulled in a pub in London, England 28 Jul 2008. The iconic British pint is fast losing ...

GETTING on the piss just got a new meaning with a Danish recycling initiative working to turn urine into beer.

The idea was born after organisers from the Roskilde Festival — northern Europe’s largest music festival — wanted to alleviate the adverse effect waste from the event had on the local environment.

Working with the Danish Articulate and Food Council, event organisers created the ‘From Piss to Pilsener’ initiative, which collected urine to fertilise the malting barley for brewing beer found in nearby fields.

For the purpose ‘beercycling’, more than 100,000 festival goers were directed to well-appointed bathrooms with specially designed storage tanks.

For men, this meant urinating in troughs, while the ladies were offered ‘she-wees’ to hit the target.

Leif Nielsen from the Danish Agriculture & Food Council said the idea was about igniting a new movement that changed our approach to waste.

“The huge amount of urine produced at festivals was having a negative impact on the environment and the sewage system, but beercycling will turn the urine into a resource,” he told the Guardian.

“I think most people can see the reason and the fun behind making a personal contribution to beer brewing, and the fact that rock music is involved will help us get our message across.”

In addition to collecting wee from festival attendees, the organisers were hoping to collect some urine to from the likes of Pharrell Williams, Sir Paul McCartney and Kendrick Lamar.

“We’ve got urinals right next to the stages where the acts will play, so we’re hoping to collect some rock star pee as well,” a spokeswoman said prior to the festival.

If everything runs smoothly, music fans attending Roskilde 2017 could be sipping on a brew made from their own wares.