Category: English

Nicola Parfitt’s MSc thesis: Centering Farmer Perspectives on a Dry-Fertiliser Made from Human Urine

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Hi, my name’s Nicola Parfitt and I recently spent a wonderful week on Gotland interviewing farmers about their perceptions of human urine as a fertilizer. I did this as part of my master thesis in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science at Lund University, which I can’t believe is already coming to an end in June.

I came into contact with this topic after Jenna Senecal, the CEO of Sanitation360 who recycles human urine and turns it into a fertilizer on Gotland, held a lecture as part of one of the courses I was taking. The potential of ecological sanitation and nutrient recycling to reduce eutrophication, contribute to circular farming and also provide decentralized toilets in countries where access to basic sanitation facilities is still low, made me fall in love with the concept. However, for the loop between sanitation and agriculture to be fully closed, farmers need to be willing to use the end product – and that’s how my thesis idea came about.

Continue reading Nicola Parfitt’s MSc thesis: Centering Farmer Perspectives on a Dry-Fertiliser Made from Human Urine

Barley field trials with Granurin fertiliser pellets have begun!

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About a month ago now, Sanitation360 finally started this year’s field trials where barley is being grown and fertilized with human urine. In addition, this is an extra special year because we’re not only trialing our dry-fertilizer but liquid urine too (see top photo)! It’s going to be really interesting to compare the barley yields between these two different forms of human urine.

In the two photos you can see Hushållningssällskapet Gotland, our local agricultural consultancy partners, using a seed drill to plant the barley and the solid urine fertilizer! Can’t wait to share the results!

 

New publication on potentials for up-scaling urine recycling

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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.

 

A milestone for Granurin, #urine #fertiliser with >15% nitrogen!

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We are extremely happy to share our latest milestone – something that we set as a aim almost ten years ago – to produce a dry urine fertiliser with the same nutrient content as that of synthetic fertilisers so that we can replace their use in agricultural systems. Earlier this year, we managed to produce the first 20 kg batch of our solid urine based fertiliser, Granurin, with >15% nitrogen content. The urine was collected last year from public urinals on Gotland as part of the N2Brew project, and treated by Sanitation360 AB, with final processing and fertiliser pelletisation done at SLU – Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences by Bjorn, Jenna and Prithvi.

SLU Kretsloppsteknikn hosts Wageningen’s ETE department

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Several members and PhD students of the ETE department (Environmental Technology) at Wageningen University & Research visited SLU earlier this month. We enjoted several interesting presentations from Miriam van Eekert, Huub Rijnaarts, Cecilia Lalander and Prithvi Simha which were followed by great discussions and a poster session where all PhD students got to showcase their research. We all also got to play a serious game which was facilitated by Jennifer McConville. It was a great day and we really look forward to future collaboration with ETE.

Dyllon and Caitlin at SLU as part of the August T Larsson Guest Researchership

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Last week Caitlin Courtney joined Dyllon Randall in Uppsala as part of the August T Larsson Guest Researchership that is hosted at #SLU by Prithvi Simha and Bjorn Vinneras. As part of this grant from SLU, Dyllon, who is an A/Prof. at the University of Cape Town, will be associated with our group as a guest researcher and visit Uppsala for 1-2 months/year, for the next three years. Exciting!

We had many discussions and brainstorming sessions about urine treatment technologies and nutrient recycling, with a growing list of new things to investigate. They also got to meet new urine researchers and see the SLU lab and urine collection facilities. Soon, Dyllon will also travel with the rest of our group to Gotland where we are hosting a demo day, showcasing our urine recycling approach and toilets/companies that are enable this paradigm shift in wastewater treatment. As Dyllon says in his recent LinkedIn post, “the future of pee-cycling is indeed bright 😊”.

New JTI Grant will investigate removal of micropollutants from reclaimed water

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Funding for a new project “On-farm biochar filters for removal of organic micropollutants from reclaimed water for agricultural irrigation” has been approved by the Swedish Agricultural Research Foundation. The main applicant is Oksana Golovko from the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment at SLU, with co-applicants Prithvi Simha from our research group and the biochar producer Waila on Gotland. Together with their newly hired PhD student, Maximilian Tyka, and Researcher Alberto Celma, they will carry out this project over the next four years.

Abstract: The use of safely reclaimed water for agriculture irrigation is a promising solution to address water shortages, especially on Gotland. One primary concern is the introduction of organic micropollutants (OMPs), such as pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, into the agricultural ecosystem and food chain. OMPs can be potentially persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic and could harm human health if they are present in agricultural products. This project aims to develop techniques to remove OMPs from reclaimed water using biochar, so that it can be safely reused for agricultural irrigation of food crops. The objectives are to 1) identify the most relevant OMPs in reclaimed water, 2) assess the capacity of biochar prepared from different renewable feedstock for removal of OMPs, 3) evaluate the thermal degradation of OMPs during re-pyrolysis/regeneration of biochar, and 4) communicate the results with food industry stakeholders.

Demo Day “Urine to Fertiliser” on Gotland – come and attend!

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SLU and Sanitation360 will be hosting “Demo Day – Urine to Fertilizer”. We are what we eat and what we eat is what we excrete. Urine contains 80% of the plant nutrients we consume. These nutrients can and should be re-used as fertilizer. If you would like to learn about how we can re-use the nutrients in our urine as fertilizer, come and attend. You will also have the opportunity to touch and sit on toilets that are enabling this to happen.
When: June 13th @ 16h00
Where: KULTURUM, Specksrum 6, 621 55 Visby, Gotland

Link to the LinkedIn page of the demo day: https://www.linkedin.com/events/demoday-urinetofertilizer7066764140874260480/

Link to the Facebook page of the demo day: fb.me/e/153OuqStl  

Evaluation of RECLAIM game published

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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.

New PhD student to assess sustsinability of sanitation systems – welcome Chitransh!

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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).