China should focus beyond access to toilets to tap into the full potential of its Rural Toilet Revolution

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Check out our latest article, a collaboration with the Zifu Li group at USTB Beijing that was published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling:

Zhou, X., Simha, P., Perez-Mercado, L. F., Barton, M. A., Lyu, Y., Guo, S., … & Li, Z. (2022). China should focus beyond access to toilets to tap into the full potential of its Rural Toilet Revolution. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 178, 106100.

Abstract: In China, over 47 million toilets in rural areas have been upgraded since the nationwide sanitation program, popularly referred to as the “toilet revolution”, was launched in 2015. However, little is known about the perceptions of rural households regarding these new toilets or the fate of human excreta collected using them. To investigate the other side of the toilet revolution, we surveyed 980 rural households from 22 provinces across China in 2020. We found that most households used an on-site sanitation system (i.e. septic tanks and pit latrines), where urine and feces were mixed and collected (88%), stored in pits or tanks (79%), emptied by the households themselves (60%), applied on farmland as fertilizer (45%), or used for biogas production (5%). Despite the toilet revolution-driven infrastructure upgrade, only 25% of the households were satisfied with their sanitation system and pointed to health risks from issues in the toilet interface and the treatment and reuse of excreta as areas of concern. The majority preferred an “out of sight, out of mind” approach, in which the local government handles excreta without involving the households and without asking them to pay for such management. Meanwhile, 80% supported the idea of local nutrient recycling and believed that human excreta should return to farmland as fertilizer or used for biogas production. Our findings suggest that decision makers in local governments across China must urgently explore ways to upgrade all parts of the sanitation service chain so that rural sanitation can be truly improved to positively influence the progress on other national sustainability goals.

N2Brew Project and Urine Drying featured in Nature!

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Separating urine from the rest of sewage could mitigate some difficult environmental problems, but there are big obstacles to radically re-engineering one of the most basic aspects of life. Check out the article by Chelsea Wald that was featured in Nature magazine yesterday. Prithvi Simha from our group along with other familiar names in the urine diversion world were interviewed by Chelsea who presents a well balanced view of the future of urine recycling and sanitation. Read the article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00338-6

Förbehandling av grönsaks-, och fruktavfall innan fluglarvsbehandling förbÀttrar inte behandlingseffektiviteten, men förenklar processen

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I vÄr senaste publikation om fluglarvskompostering med larven av den amerikanska vapenflugan (Hermetia illucens) undersökte vi effekten av förbehandling pÄ processeffektivitet och vÀxthusgasutslÀpp. Vi utvÀrderade fluglarvskompostering av broccoli- och blomkÄlsavskÀr och apelsinskal med och utan förbehandling och jÀmförde resultaten med matavfall  som anvÀndes som kontroll. De förbehandlingar vi undersökte var en tvÄ veckors inokulering med svampen Trichoderma reesei eller ammoniaklösning. Hypotesen var att svamparna skulle bryta ner cellulosa och hemicellulosa till lÀttillgÀngliga kolhydrater, medan tanken med ammoniakförbehandlingen var att den bÄde skulle bryta cellstrukturen samt tillföra kvÀve till mikrobiotan som skulle kunna assimilera kvÀvet till protein.

Continue reading Förbehandling av grönsaks-, och fruktavfall innan fluglarvsbehandling förbÀttrar inte behandlingseffektiviteten, men förenklar processen

Pre-treatment of fruit and vegetable waste prior to BSFL composting does not improve efficiency but simplified processing

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In our latest publication on black soldier fly larvae (BSFL; Hermetia illucens) composting, we investigated the impact of pre-treatment on process efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. We evaluated BSFL composting of broccoli and cauliflower cuttings and orange peel with and without pre-treatment, and compared the results to those for food waste (control). The two pre-treatments we investigated were a 2 w inoculation with 1) the fungi Trichoderma reesei or 2) ammonia solution. The hypothesis was that the fungi would break down cellulose and hemicellulose to easily available carbohydrates, while the idea with the ammonia pre-treatment was that it would both break cellular structure and add nitrogen for the microbial community to assimilate into proteins.

Continue reading Pre-treatment of fruit and vegetable waste prior to BSFL composting does not improve efficiency but simplified processing

Studyvisit to VAFAB in VÀsterÄs

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We went on a study trip to the waste management company VAFAB in VĂ€sterĂ„s with students from our two courses about waste management, ”Safe nutrient recycling 15HP” and ”Waste management 5HP”. A very interesting tour that gave insights about the volumes of waste that we all generate, among the things we visited we had a bus tour over the 45 hectar old landfill. Additionally we had a nice tour of the newly re-built biogas plant and hear about the challenges they had with sediments in the reactors from egg shells, sand and dirt that consumes reactor volumes. The produced biogas is used for the local buses and the bio-fertiliser is collected by local farmers for free.

Food waste bags that have been collected in the VÀsterÄs region are stored before they are feed to the anaerobic digester.

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Studiebesök pÄ VAFAB i VÀsterÄs

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Vi Ă„kte förra veckan pĂ„ studiebesök till avfallsbolaget VAFAB i VĂ€sterĂ„s med studenterna frĂ„n vĂ„ra tvĂ„ kurser som hanterar avfallshantering, ”SĂ€ker nĂ€ring i kretslopp, 15HP” och ”Avfallshantering 5HP”. Det var en vĂ€ldigt givande tur som gav tydlig insikt i mĂ€ngderna avfall vi alla genererar, dĂ„ vi bland annat Ă„kte med bussen över den gamla deponin som Ă€r 45 hektar stor. Dessutom fick vi se den nyligen ombyggda biogasanlĂ€ggningen och höra om problemen i biogasreaktorerna som orsakas av sediment frĂ„n Ă€ggskal, jord och sand som tar upp en stor del av reaktorvolymen. Den producerade biogasen anvĂ€nds till drivmedel, frĂ€mst för stadens bussar, samt biogödseln som hĂ€mtas gratis av lokala bönder.

MatavfallspÄsar som samlats in i VÀsterÄs regionen och vÀntar pÄ att rötas.

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MVM 10 year jublee

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Förra veckan fyllde vÄr huvudbyggnad MVM, som inhyser vÄra kontor laboratorier, 10 Är och vi firade alla tillsammans! MÄnga klipska hjÀrnor har passerat denna byggnad under de senaste 10 Ären, sÄ för att lÀra kÀnna nya och uppdatera sig pÄ vad de som för nÀrvarande jobbar hÀr, tog nÄgra av oss jubileet som ett tillfÀlle att presentera vÄra grupper för varandra. Det finns inget bÀttre Àn en promenad genom vÄr mÄngsidiga arbetsplats, efterföljt av en mycket god fika!

PÄ tal om fika: fluglarven hade sin egen version av svenskt fika, tvÄ lÄdor innehÄllande 10 000 larver vardera matades med (vegetarisk) hamburgare och rulltÄrta och vÄra kollegor kunde rösta pÄ menti.com vilken av de tvÄ mÄltiderna som skulle gÄ Ät först! Det var en jÀmn kamp, men till slut föredrog larven helt klart rulltÄrtan! Vem kan sÀga nej till lite lÀttillgÀngliga kolhydrater pÄ vintern!

MVM 10 year jublee

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Last week our main building MVM, which contains our offices and laboratories, turned 10 and we all celebrated together! Many bright brains have entered and left this building in the past 10 years, so to catch up with the current staff, some of us took the celebration as an opportunity to present their group to our fellow colleagues. Nothing better than a stroll through our diverse work place, with Fika and coffee afterwards!

Speaking of Fika: The fly larva had their own version of Swedish Fika, two boxes containing 10.000 larva each were fed (vegetarian) hamburgers and cake and our colleagues could vote on menti.com which of the two meals would be gone first! It was a tight race but in the end the larva clearly preferred the cake! Who can say no to some easily available carbs in winter!

Who cares about toilets?

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Check out the article we wrote with SLU Global for World Toilet Day.

Today is World Toilet Day. According to WHO and UNICEF around four billion people in the world does not have access to a safely managed sanitation service. Untreated wastewater released to the environment can contaminate drinking-water sources, rivers, beaches and food crops, spreading deadly diseases among the wider population. This is rather unfortunate because source-separated wastewater fractions like human urine and faeces are renewable resources from which water, nutrients and energy can be recovered and safely recycled and used as a fertiliser. So SLU cares!

In the wastewater that comes out of a household, human urine makes up just 1% of total volume. However, in terms of nutrients, urine contains more than 80% of the nitrogen and over half of the potassium and the phosphorus. In fact, urine produced by people worldwide contains enough nutrients to fertilise three-quarters of the food we eat.

Earlier this year, Dr. Prithvi Simha from the Department of Energy and Technology at SLU, defended his thesis, which developed a novel on-site sanitation technology called “alkaline urine dehydration” to capture all the nutrients in urine without its water. Prithvi and his team at SLU are working to disrupt the way we manage wastewater and design sanitation systems. They believe that resources like urine should be separately collected, safely treated to produce fertilisers, and returned to farmland to close the nutrient loop in our food system. If implemented globally, such a system could reduce the transgression of the planetary boundary for nitrogen and phosphorus by 35% and 25%, respectively.

Continue reading Who cares about toilets?

Talk at the Baltic Sea Science Center in Stockholm

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Last week on 15th of November, Jenna Senecal and Anastasija Vasiljev gave a talk on urine research at the Baltic Sea Science Center in Stockholm. The topic of discussion was “From Fork to Farm and from Farm to Fork. How toilets are a part of this cycle”. The audience consisted of around 20 high school teachers.

Together with another lecture done by Stockholm Vatten och Avfall, we felt that we made quite an impact and we hope that the teachers will feel inspired to share our technologies with their students.

If you want to know more about the Baltic Sea Science Center and what they do, click here.

And to see what SLU is doing regarding the center, click here.