Doktorand Solveig Johannesdottir och forskare Jennifer McConville deltog i det årliga mötet för projektet BONUS RETURN I Helsingfors 28-29 maj. De två interna dagarna avslutades med en dag för externa deltagare för kunskapsutbyte och diskussioner kring cirkulär ekonomi den 30e maj. Dagen startades med en presentation om RETURN projektet, följt av presentationer av Akko Karlsson (Kalmar Regional Council), Marcus Svedberg (Senior advisor, Stockholm Sustainable Finance Centre), Eija Hagelberg (Project Director, JÄRKI project, Baltic Sea Action Group) och Marc Klaus (Director, Race For The Baltic). Därefter hölls en paneldiskussion kring ämnet “Hur kan vi möjliggöra cirkulära innovationer för att starta hållbara förändringar i Östersjöregionen?”. Under eftermiddagen fick deltagarna sedan delta i diskussioner i mindre grupper kring ämnena risker och fördelar med cirkulär ekonomi, sociala dimensioner, hur entreprenörskap kan påverka omställningen till cirkulär ekonomi och nätverk för cirkulära innovationer. För mer information om projektet, se bonusreturn.com och kolla in #bonusreturn på Twitter.
The BONUS RETURN partners in Helsinki, the 28th of May. PC: SEI
Author: Prithvi Simha
Workshop on Systematic Review Methods
Solveig Johannesdottir, doctoral candidate in our research group, attended a workshop in Systematic Review Methods in Warszaw 17-18th of May. The workshop was held by Mistra Council for Evidence Based Environmental Management, endorsed by the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence. The workshop was led by Neal Haddaway and Biljana Macura, both at the Stockholm Environment Institute. At the workshop, participants got training in planning, organizing and conducting systematic reviews and systematic maps. This method is used in the BONUS RETURN project, where Solveig is systematically mapping the evidence of resource recovery technologies for wastewater. To learn more about the BONUS RETURN project, visit bonusreturn.com.
Steps of the Systematic Review. Source: Neal Haddaway.
Bryts läkemedelsrester i avloppsslam ned under lagring?
Hur mycket läkemedelsrester bryts ned i slam under lagring undersöks i projektet Reduktion av läkemedel och andra organiska miljöföroreningar under lagring/efterbehandling av avloppsslam. Ett storskaligt lagringsförsök med ca 430 ton slam fördelade på 6 olika varianter på slamlagring startade under tisdagen och onsdagen 29-30/5 på Hovgårdens avfallsanläggning i Uppsala samarbete mellan Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet SLU, Svenska Miljöinstitutet IVL och Uppsala Vatten och Avfall AB.
Different conditions for sludge storage: thermophilic compacted sludge for open storage (left), mesophilic compacted sludge for open storage (middle)and mesophilic compacted sludge for covered storage (right). PC: Sahar Dalahmeh
Our fly larvae composting research is featured in a Swedish journal “Forskning & Framsteg”
Cecilia Lalander, the researcher leading fly larvae composting research at the Environmental Engineering group, has been interviewed by Anna Froster for the Swedish popular scientific journal Forskning & Framsteg. The article discusses various issues and achievements around the use of black soldier fly larvae to convert waste to value. Among others, the benefits discussed are that of the sanitization effect of the treatment, the reduction of pharmaceuticals as well as contribution of this waste management strategy towards reaching UNs sustainable development goals. Current issues with method implementation, including the EU legal restrictions, are also lifted in the article.
To read the full article follow this link: https://fof.se/tidning/2018/5/artikel/larverna-fixar-biffen
Ni hao!
Between 4-20th of May, four members of our fly larvae composting team (Cecilia Lalander, Evgheni Ermolaev, Giulio Zorzetto and Viktoria Wiklicky) left their natural habitat in Sweden (desks and greenhouse) and traded it for a temporary new home a bit further east: China.
Their first stop was Fuyang, a city considered “small” by Chinese standards, located in the northwestern Anhui province. For a week, the fly larvae composting team helped a local pig farmer to set up a soldier fly composting system to manage the waste of around 300 pigs and piglets on-site.
Photo: Viktoria Wiklicky, Evgheni Ermolaev
Despite the tight schedule, the team managed to set up a nursery for the black soldier fly hatchlings and a preliminary system to treat the fresh pig manure.
Photo: Evgheni Ermolaev
Questionnaire design and mangement course
Prithvi Simha, Doctoral Candidate in our research group attended a week long course between 14-18 May 2018, in Kaunas, Lithuania. The course was organised by the Nordic Forestry, Veterinary and Agricultural University (NOVA) Network and co-ordinated by Prof. Ulf Emanuelson, SLU. The course tackled several key issues regarding the design of questionnaires, respondent psychology, biases, and statistical tools for dealing with missing data/non-response such as multiple imputations. 
Course participants at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences campus, Kaunas. PC: Ulf Emanuelson
Full-scale urine drying trials at SLU
This week, the Environmental Engineering group at SLU starts its full-scale urine drying experiments. The group has designed and built 6 household-scale urine drying prototypes for the experiments. Over the coming months, every day, these units will be drying 24 litres of urine. The biggest challenge so far has been to collect enough daily fresh urine to feed the prototypes. We thank all those who have donated urine so far, and hope that these donating keep coming. Your donations can potentially help revolutionise sanitation!
Urine donation points at toilets across the Department of Energy & Technology, SLU; PhD Candidate Prithvi Simha eager to get the experiments started in our Hygiene Lab
Join Run4Life@IFAT / The virtuous circle of integrated nutrient recovery in Munich on May 17th
The H2020 Run4Life project is organising a Stakeholder Engagement Workshop as a side event at the IFAT trade fair in Munich, on May 17th. Everyone with an interest in nutrient recovery is invited to take part in this inspiring event. The programme includes a wide variety of speakers ensuring that it will be a very interesting morning. Please visit http://run4life-project.eu/run4life-ifat to have a look at the programme, and register your attendance. 
Implementing Urine Drying technology in Durban, South Africa
Prithvi Simha, Jenna Senecal, and Björn Vinnerås just returned after spending a week in Durban, South Africa. We travelled there to present our novel sanitation technology called alkaline urine dehydration to several potential collaborators, and to see if the technology could fit into the local context. We met with sanitation experts from the Pollution Research Group at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the eThekwini Municipality, and Envirosan (a toilet manufacturer based in Durban). The trip was extremely fruitful with a positive response from all experts about our technology. We even brought back with us two new urine-diverting toilets to test our system with (thank you Envirosan!). Our next step will be to return to Durban with a pilot-scale urine drying system that the Pollution Research Group will test at their research facility. Following this, drying units will also be tested in people’s homes at the eThekwini municipality. A big thank you to Chris Buckley for co-ordinating the trip & to the NJ Committee on Global Affairs for the financial assistance.
SLU EnviroSan Loot; PC: Chris Buckley
Edible Insects: the Value Chain, symposium at Wageningen
Last month, Giulio Zorzetto from our research group participated in the ‘Edible Insects: the value chain‘ symposium hosted by Wageningen University at Ede, Netherlands. The symposium celebrated 10 years of research related to the utilization of insects as novel food and feed. Giulio contributed to the event by presenting a poster on the cold storage of early instar of the black soldier fly in order to provide a buffer of available larvae to black soldier fly farms. Click here to access the presentation.
PC: Wageningen University, Netherlands