Are there antibiotics and hormones in your urine fertilizer?
Urine contains smaller amounts of antibiotics and hormones than manure (Hammer & Clemens, 2007). Many hormone-based medications mimic naturally occurring substances that nature already has mechanisms to break down (Jönsson et al., 2004). Once urine is applied to soil, biological degradation processes further transform these compounds into non-harmful substances. As a result, the environmental impact of hormones and antibiotics from urine fertilizer is expected to be lower than from animal manure, but ongoing studies continue to evaluate this aspect.
References:
Hammer, M., Clemens, J. 2007. A tool to evaluate the fertiliser value and the environmental impact of substrates from wastewater treatment. Water Science and Technology, 56(5), 201–209. https://iwaponline.com/wst/article-abstract/56/5/201/14037/A-tool-to-evaluate-the-fertiliser-value-and-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Goetsch, H. E., Love, N. G., & Wigginton, K. R. (2020). Fate of Extracellular DNA in the Production of Fertilizers from Source-Separated Urine. In Environmental Science & Technology (Vol. 54, Issue 3, pp. 1808–1815). American Chemical Society (ACS). https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b04263 Results from Goetsch et al. Explained here by the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/22/study-gives-green-light-to-use-of-urine-as-crop-fertiliser