Festival Urine Recycling Programs

Roskilde Festival Introduced From Piss to Pilsner

Roskilde Festival and the Danish Agriculture & Food Council introduced a beercycling initiative called From Piss to Pilsner that collected attendee urine, featuring dedicated urinals, storage tanks and P-Mate urine directors for female contributors. The scheme routed festival liquid waste to nearby farms so the nutrient-rich fluid could fertilize malting barley destined for beer production.

Organizers fitted strategically placed collection stations across the week-long event and coordinated transfers of stored urine to agricultural partners for field application. The program aimed to close a local-loop resource cycle by converting a plentiful waste stream into a crop input, with the harvested barley then used to brew beer for a future festival.

For consumers, the effort reframed festival waste as a tangible sustainability action that links attendee behavior to product outcomes, offering a memorable, low-tech example of circular resource use at large events.

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