Content Warning: This post mentions urine storage and may be unpleasant to read.

Hi everyone,

This is a bit embarrassing, but I really need some advice.

Due to a long illness about a year ago, I had to use 2L PET bottles to urinate in. I sealed them tightly and planned to throw them away, but couldn’t manage it. So they’ve been sitting at room temperature for about 1 year.

I’m worried that opening them could release toxic gases like ammonia or hydrogen sulfide. Could opening them indoors be dangerous or make someone sick? Also, does anyone know roughly how much ammonia or hydrogen sulfide can build up in sealed urine over that time?

Some of the bottles still look like the original urine color, but others have turned a much darker yellow-brown, or even almost black, which makes me even more concerned.

I’m also wondering if gases might have slowly leaked out even though the caps were closed tightly. There are about 20 bottles, and this is really stressing me out.

Any scientific insight or experience would be greatly appreciated. I just want to deal with this safely and move on.

Thanks for reading.

Edited July 2Jul 2 by Qurious22

Urine is mostly sterile when it comes out of us, unless there is blood present. Storing it in plastic over time is just going to allow the small amounts of ammonium ions in our pee to create ammonia gas.

Unless your long illness involved a urinary tract infection, and as long as there's no blood present in the urine, you should be able to simply flush your supply. Ammonia isn't a pleasant smell (at least to me), but it's not going to concentrate enough to affect you if you're just pouring the bottles into the toilet. Open the windows and wear a mask if you're still worried.

Even better, certain plants enjoy some extra ammonium and nitrogen as part of their growth cycles, so you could water them using your bottles. I'm not a gardener, so maybe it would be better to mix the urine with dirt instead of pouring it directly on them. Don't do this with grasses though. I'm pretty sure it's the ammonium in a dog's urine that causes bald spots on a lawn.

Yes, if you have a garden you could pour them onto the compost heap, say one a week. but dont out them directly into the soil at this time of year. December would be OK for that.

Alternatively just pour them down an outside drain or gully and rinse them out.

5 hours ago, Phi for All said:

. I'm not a gardener, so maybe it would be better to mix the urine with dirt instead of pouring it directly on them. Don't do this with grasses though. I'm pretty sure it's the ammonium in a dog's urine that causes bald spots on a lawn.

I reside with a botanical person who advises to avoid urine on anything unless quite diluted. You're right that urea can burn lawns. But dilution and then a good watering and you've recycled some beneficial phosphorus and N into the garden. The OP has inspired a rewrite of an old drinking song (if inspired is really the verb):

20 bottles of piss on the floor, 20 bottles of piss,

Take one out, spread it about, 19 bottles of piss on the floor. (And so on)

Thank you for answers,
I don’t live in a house with a yard, so I was planning to open the bottles and dispose of them in the toilet indoors.

For those of you who replied and suggested pouring it on the lawn or compost, did you mean that opening the bottles wouldn’t really pose any risk to my lungs or health? I just want to be sure that the reason you mentioned those options is because there’s no significant hazard from the gases when opening them.

5 minutes ago, Qurious22 said:

For those of you who replied and suggested pouring it on the lawn or compost, did you mean that opening the bottles wouldn’t really pose any risk to my lungs or health? I just want to be sure that the reason you mentioned those options is because there’s no significant hazard from the gases when opening them.

No hazard, right. As one of us suggested, you might open a window and/or run an exhaust fan if pouring it out in the toilet.