Category: English

We are delighted to announce that our scholarly article titled “Urine recycling – Diffusion  barriers and upscaling potential; case studies from Sweden and Switzerland” has been successfully published in the Journal of Cleaner Production.

The primary focus of our research was to investigate the underlying barriers that impede the widespread implementation of urine recycling systems, despite their considerable potential for enhancing food and fertilizer security. Through a comprehensive analysis, we identified several challenges: technological limitations, inadequate investment, insufficient knowledge dissemination, and inadequate legal support. Moreover, we formulated various strategic pathways for scaling up these systems and provided well-founded policy recommendations to overcome the existing obstacles, fostering their expansion and aligning them with future aspirations.

If you’re interested in learning more about urine recycling then this paper is for you.

We have designed a serious game to influence cognitive, normative & relational sanitation learning. The game is called RECLAIM. It aims to communicate knowledge on sanitation impacts and possibilities for resource recovery. The game was co-designed as part of the SPANS project in collaboration with stakeholders in Uganda and Sweden. Just before the pandemic we managed to run a few test sessions with the game as a proof-of-concept. We were able to show that the game could achieve its aims. Highlights from the evaluation found that:

• Serious gaming in planning can influence worldviews and stakeholder norms.
• Players gained an appreciation of the need for collaboration.
• Games in planning processes would strengthen potential for changing practices.

While we can conclude that the game meets the requirements for creating a safe environment for social learning there is still the issue of implementing the game and bringing diverse players to the table. Two key aspects include deciding when to use the game in the planning process and who should play (Kain et al., 2021). The planning process should be carefully designed to support empowerment and inclusiveness, by adapting sessions for specific types of players at appropriate times and including relevant content. Based on this reasoning, we suggest a game toolbox, including modules and add-ons that would allow for flexibility in game length and content.

We are currently working to design just such a toolbox and a training session to teach people how to use it. Stay tuned for more information.

Chitransh Dua is an Indian citizen who holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Planning from School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Engineering from GGSIP University, Delhi. He has four years of experience working in different government organizations in India including the Ministry of Environment. He has also worked with the United Nations Environment Programme as a Consultant wherein he provided technical assistance on the implementation of several circular economy and resource efficiency measures at the National and subnational level.

Chitransh Dua has joined the Kretsloppsteknik group as a PhD student where he will be working on the development of decision-support tools to weigh trade-offs for integration of new sanitation systems into existing infrastructures. He will also be involved in the application of methods, such as life cycle assessment, cost-benefit analysis and systems dynamic modelling, on case studies for nutrient recovery from urine and wastewater, in the context of an EU project (P2GreeN).

Hej! My name is Verena and I recently started a 2-years-postdoc here at SLU’s Kretsloppsteknik. Rooting in my bachelor and master degree of civil engineering and water management at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna (BOKU), my interests and expertise evolved throughout my doctorate to a more interdisciplinary perspective at the science-society-policy interface. After working on sanitation system planning and modelling in my master thesis, I enrolled in the Transitions to Sustainability (T2S) Doctoral School with its goal of promoting and supporting inter- and transdisciplinary research in the field of sustainable development. My previous research focused on the development and evaluation of coherent policy-options to boost the implementation of SDG 6 at the example of Austria and on the assessment of methods to evaluate interactions between different SDG entities.

Here at SLU I will be supporting the group on systems analysis lead by Jennifer. My work will focus on evaluating different systems for resource recovery and identifying and balancing trade-offs between sustainability aspects related to these systems. If you would like to know more about my work and interests just contact me or approach me for a talk or a fika. I am looking forward to fruitful exchanges and exciting tasks here at SLU. Vi ses!