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
Category: English
The 2018 Water Prize ceremony in Stockholm
Professor Håkan Jonsson received the 2018 Water Prize from Föreningen Vatten yesterday (14.03.2018) for his work on nutrient recycling. Many congratulations to him from all of us at the kretsloppsteknik research group at SLU!
Marta Ahlquist-Juhlén from Föreningen vatten delivering the Vatten-priset to Professor Håkan Jönsson; PC – Magnus Berglund
Non-grid solutions for the future of urban water management workshop Monte Verita, 14-17 March
Björn Vinnerås participated in this meeting at ETH, Monte Verita venue in Ascona, Southern Switzerland. The venue was quite picturesque, with palm trees in the foreground and snowy mountains in the background.
The view from the workshop venue, Monte Verita. PC: Björn Vinnerås
New study on occurrence and concentrations of PFASs in Uganda
In a very recent study published in Science of the Total Environment, Sahar Dalahmeh, a researcher at the Environmental Engineering Unit and her co-workers investigated concentrations and partitioning of 26 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) in wastewater, surface water, soil and crop plants (yam, maize and sugarcane) in Nakivubo wetland and Lake Victoria at Kampala, Uganda.
Location of the study area at Kampala, Uganda, and the sampling sites
Water Research School annual meeting in Luleå
This year’s annual meeting of the Water Research School, of which many members of the kretsloppsteknik research group are part of, was hosted by Luleå Tekniska Universitet (LTU) between 7-8 February. Solveig Johannesdottir, Jennifer McConville and Prithvi Simha from our group made it to Luleå for the 2-day event. On the first day, they got to hear about LTU’s current research on urban drainage & stormwater management, VR platforms for visualisation, and the effects of shifting the city centre in Kiruna & Gällivare on urban water and sanitation. Day 2 started with two interesting lectures – the first where Prof. Lennart Elfgren shared his views on ‘how to do a PhD and feel good about it’; the second where Prof. Javier Martin-Torres talked about discovering transcient water on Mars. 
Water Research School group picture at Gråsjälören. PC: Salar H. Afshar
Building blocks of modular BSF treatment are put together in a course
Our one-day-course in modular fly larva treatment is in high demand. After the first course opportunity in December 2017, the course was organized again on 14 March 2018, with eight participants from different Swedish companies and universities.
In the morning Cecilia Lalander and Evgheni Ermolaev gave an in-depth introduction to the concept of a modular system developed at SLU and presented the possibilities on waste management with the black soldier fly larvae. Details on both the fly rearing and waste treatment modules were presented.
Research-Policy Interaction for Sustainable Development
Prithvi Simha, PhD student at the Kretsloppsteknik group attended a course on research-policy interaction at the Gothenburg Centre for Sustainable Development (GMV). The course was given as part of the ‘Water Research School‘ for PhD students in Sweden, of which several candidates from our group are part of. The course involved creating a research-to-policy plan related to Prithvi’s PhD research on urine dehydration, understanding models for stakoholder interaction and learning to effectively communicate with policymakers. Course participants also got to hear from Johan Kuylenstierna, former CEO of Stockholm Environmental Institute, on his personal experiences of science-policy interaction. 
Course participants from the Water Research School; PC – Linda Kanders
Molecular Methods course in Finland
Jenna Senecal attended a course on Molecular Methods for Detection of Food- and Waterborne Pathogens in Helsinki, Finland (04.03.2018-08.03.2018). The course was taught and attended by top researchers from the Nordic countries. She learned about the latest available technologies for DNA extraction and analyses being used for detecting pathogenic strains of viruses, bacteria and parasites.
Group Photo with PCR
SPANS project work in Uganda
There is a lot going in the SPANS project in Uganda right now.
We have started demonstration units of nutrient-recovery treatment technologies for fecal sludge at the Luibgi wastewater treatment plant in Kampala. Two MSc students from Luleå University of Technology are currently operating demonstration units for treatment with lime and urea. The students are collecting and analyzing samples to determine if the technologies are functioning properly with regard to reduction of public and environmental health risks. They are also doing interviews with workers at the wastewater treatment plant and other stakeholders to understand the levels of acceptance and feasibility of implementing such technologies within the existing management structures. Soon two students from Makerere University will be starting a demonstration unit with Black Soldier Fly composting at the wastewater treatment plant.
Sanitation Round Table meeting in Nairobi, Kenya
SLU and IAS (International Aid services) jointly hosted a round table meeting on the 25th of January in Nairobi, Kenya. Different stakeholders such as local politicians, NGOs and researchers took part in the meeting, to discuss how to jointly solve the sanitation situation in Africa’s largest urban slum, Nairobi’s Kibera.
Participants of the round table meeting. PC: Sheila Gatumu