Wee-wee all the way home

New Zealand's sheep farmers have been offered a potential new area of diversification - producing sheep urine as a bus fuel additive.

The Guardian newspaper in Britain reports that the head office of the Stagecoach bus company is testing sheep urine as a fuel additive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from its vehicles.

Stagecoach has fitted a bus in Winchester with a tank containing the animal waste, which is sprayed into exhaust fumes to reduce emissions of harmful nitrous oxides.

Andrew Dyer, managing director of Stagecoach South, said: "It is a novel way of reducing pollution but we believe it will work.

"There is nothing to worry about - we won't be asking passengers to leave a sample and we won't be carrying a resident sheep at the back of the bus."

The scheme has been backed by Hampshire County Council as part of an effort to reduce pollution. The bus carried its first passengers last month.

The urine is collected by the fertiliser industry from farmyard waste and refined into pure urea.

Ammonia from the urea reacts with nitrous oxides in the exhaust fumes and converts them to nitrogen gas and water, released as steam.

- NZPA