Cape Town's PeeCycling wins the Circular Innovation Challenge — with a trial at the V&A Waterfront

It sounds like a joke until you hear the numbers it is chasing: urine is rich in the nitrogen and phosphorus that farms buy as fertiliser, and flushing it away wastes both water and nutrients. Cape Town startup PeeCycling, which recovers those resources from urine, has won South Africa's 2026 Circular Innovation Challenge and will now explore a trial of its technology at the V&A Waterfront, one of the country's busiest visitor sites. Judges praised the idea's scalability, commercial viability and layered environmental benefits. The other finalists were just as inventive: Green Brine Technologies turns harmful desalination waste into useful industrial chemicals, noodees makes plastic-free, waterless cleansing powders, and SKUBU is an automated, package-free refill store designed for township communities. 'Pee-Cycling exemplifies how innovative thinking can turn everyday waste into environmental and economic value,' the challenge said.

SDG 12 · Responsible consumption and production — Mechanism: tech innovation