English – Page 22 – Kretsloppsteknik

Policy brief published on the Makerere University Website

Published 10 November, 2020
By Lovisa Lindberg

The SPANS project on Sanitation Planning for Alternative Nutrient-recovery Systems has published its first policy brief. The brief presents results of a study on capital and operational costs for sanitation in Kampala, Uganda. It was found that annualized costs for sewerage systems are 13 time greater than for faecal sludge systems. Sewerage systems receive a greater share of public funding than faecal sludge systems, at the same time that they serve only 1% of the greater metropolitan area. Strategies aiming at equitable and inclusive sanitation need to consider alternative sanitation systems and services in which users enjoy equal shares of public funding.

HOW MUCH SHOULD SAFELY MANAGED SANITATION COST? Click here, to get more knowledge.

We found a way to turn urine into solid fertiliser – it could make farming more sustainable

Published 6 November, 2020
By Prithvi Simha

It’s likely that most of the food you’ll eat today was not farmed sustainably.

The global system of food production is the largest human influence on the planet’s natural cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus. How much crops can grow is limited by the amount of these two elements in the soil, so they’re applied as fertilisers. But the majority of fertilisers are either made by converting nitrogen in the air to ammonia, which alone consumes 2% of the world’s energy and relies heavily on fossil fuels, or by mining finite resources, like phosphate rock.

But a solution to this problem could be much closer than people realise. Most of the nutrients we consume in food are passed in our urine, because our bodies already have enough. But instead of being recaptured, these nutrients are flushed, diluted, and sent to wastewater treatment plants where they’re scrubbed out, leaving effluents that can be safely released into the environment.

The most nutrient-rich part of wastewater is human urine, which makes up less than 1% of the total volume but contains 80% of the nitrogen and 50% of the phosphorus. We discovered how to recycle this urine into valuable – and sustainable – farmland fertiliser.

Take a virtual tour of our BSF Colony at SLU

Published 25 October, 2020
By Prithvi Simha

Recently, Cecilia Lalander and Viktoria Wiklicky from our research group made a short 12 min video of the our Black Soldier Fly (BSF) rearing colony. Click on the link below to take a virtual tour of our facilities and to learn how we rear our flies, how the flies/larvae move through the various stages of their life cycle, and how to treat organic wastes using BSF larvae.

Webinar on serious gaming – RECLAIM

Published 12 October, 2020
By Lovisa Lindberg

We are pleased to announce a webinar on the serious-game that we have made on resource recovery in sanitation – RECLAIM. We will present it on the 11^th November, 2020 between 13:00-14:00 CEST.

2020 Rich Earth Virtual Summit: Reclaiming Urine as a Resource

Published 12 October, 2020
By Lovisa Lindberg

A group of us attended this year’s Virtual Summit about Reclaiming Urine as a Resource. The main take aways:

Launching the Guide to Sanitation Resource-Recovery Products & Technologies

Published 29 September, 2020
By Prithvi Simha

We are pleased to announce the we will soon be publishing a Guide to Sanitation Resource-Recovery Products & Technologies! To launch this publication we are hosting a webinar on the SuSanA forum.

When? 22^nd of October, 2020 between 14:00-15:00 CEST. Details and registration can be found on this link: https://www.susana.org/en/news-and-events/sanitation-events/upcoming-events?details=170

This Webinar is organized by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Makerere University and the Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) in collaboration with SuSanA working group 5 as part of the SPANS research project. It will present a new publication related to resource recovery from sanitation systems – the Guide to Sanitation Resource-Recovery Products & Technologies. The publication is designed as a supplement to the Eawag Compendium of Sanitation Systems and Technologies. It provides an overview of the possibilities for resource recovery from sanitation and provide guidance on treatment processes to achieve safe products for reuse. The webinar will introduce the guide, including an overview of the technologies and products that are covered in the document, and discuss how the information sheets can be used a reference book for sanitation planning and decision-making.

BSF larvae as chicken feed

Published 10 September, 2020
By Lovisa Lindberg

This summer the BSF farm supplied 40 laying hens with 25kg of live larva per week. The experiment stretched over 14 weeks and in the end a grand total of 350kg of live larva ended up as nutritious chicken feed! The hens were split up into three experimental groups, in addition to a control group, each group following a different diet: A standard chicken feed with a substitution of 10%, 20% and ad libitum larvae was provided to evaluate the impact on the hens. They were monitored on a regular basis with weekly measurements of hen body weight, egg production, and feed consumption. The amount of larvae consumed was measured daily and egg quality and behavior data were also collected. The researchers will use the results of this study to select the diet that includes the highest substitution of protein from soy to BSF larvae while still maintaining appropriate egg production and hen welfare.

Our new team member Gabriella will work with microplastics!

Published 9 September, 2020
By Lovisa Lindberg

My name is Gabriella and I have just started working as a research assistant at SLU. I have studied environmental engineering and I graduate recently. My dissertation focused on small-scale water purification and was carried out as an MFS (Minor Field Study) project in the Kenyan capital Nairobi 2019. In Nairobi’s slum Kibera, the possibility of purifying irrigation water with a vertical biochar garden filter was designed, implemented and evaluated. I am generally interested in water issues, but especially in water purification technology and small-scale sewage systems. As a research assistant, I will focus on microplastic analyzes and filtration, which feels both new, important and exciting!

Publication on field testing alkaline urine dehydration at pilot-scale in Finland

Published 2 September, 2020
By Prithvi Simha

In early 2019, we designed and installed a pilot shell system to dry fresh urine collected from about 100 toilet users each day (or a maximum of 30 liters of urine day^-1). The system was implemented at a Finnish army training ground (Camp Mauri) belonging to Pori Brigade, which is a garrison in Säkylä, Finland and was used for a period of three months between March and May 2019. In a new publication in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, we describe results of the evaluation of the technology. The publication can be openly accessed here:

Simha P, Karlsson C, Viskari E-L, Malila R and Vinnerås B (2020). Field Testing a Pilot-Scale System for Alkaline Dehydration of Source-Separated Human Urine: A Case Study in Finland. Front. Environ. Sci. 8:570637. doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2020.570637

The “new urban water paradigm” – what is it about?

Published 2 September, 2020
By Lovisa Lindberg

Over the past decades, the idea of a new urban water paradigm has emerged in the context of a broader societal change that promotes a more organic worldview over a mechanistic and technocratic understanding of reality. But what is this new paradigm about?