Michigan fans arrive at the Ann Arbor Golf Club to tailgate. Then researchers ask them to step into 2 yurts and donate their urine: ‘The Piss Off’

Could your urine be used for good? According to some researchers who are hosting The Piss Off in Michigan, the answer is yes, as some researchers in Michigan prepare to use the football rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State to test a “peecycling” program on a stadium-level scale for the first time.

Researchers from Michigan and Michigan State University are asking football fans to donate their urine to science after tailgating to celebrate this rivalry game on November 7, according to the New York Post.

Donations begin before kickoff and last until the final whistle, encouraging tailgaters to take part in the program. There will be two yurts set up for donations, and each one will support a specific school, letting fans show their team support when they choose where to donate.

Donations will be taken at Ann Arbor Golf Club

Tailgaters at the Ann Arbor Golf Club on Saturday will find the yurts set up for donations. According to the event website, the donations begin at 1 p.m. and end when the game ends. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. This allows for a wide window that hopefully provides time for anybody who wants to participate to make it to the location and donate.

While you usually see recycling events for materials like scrap metal or precious metals, it turns out that urine can be quite valuable for recycling when it’s in the right hands. That’s why The Piss Off will have researchers available to direct people participating while providing some incentive for football fans to down some more drinks leading up to and during the game, assuming they’re of legal drinking age, of course.

The urine will be turned into fertilizer for the schools

If you’re curious about how the urine will be used and processed, the Piss Off website goes over the process from the time of donation to being part of some topsoil. This offers a unique way to help the environment with nutrients that otherwise go to waste. Meanwhile, a different university is using another newer technology to help their community by creating 3D-printed dentures.

For collections, waterless urinals ensure that only urine is received in donations and nothing else gets mixed in. Next, the donations are taken and processed into a concentrate using a freeze-thaw patented process that researchers developed with Brightwater Tools, a company that licenses University of Michigan patented tech.

After the urine is sanitized and pasteurized, the nutrients within it are isolated. This gives the researchers the ability to create custom blends of nutrients for various fields based on what those fields need. Finally, the fertilizer will be labeled and sent for field application.

Since this is a pilot program and the Piss Off will be the largest scale it’s been tried on so far, the results could lead to more expansions of the program.

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