socio-technical systems analysis – Page 4

Fecal sludge & sewage treatment infrastructure investments & operating costs in Kampala, Uganda

Published 7 January, 2020
By Prithvi Simha

Like many low-income countries, Uganda is struggling to provide sanitation to its inhabitants. Meeting the Sustainable Development Goal related to sanitation (SDG6) will require major investments in sanitation. This study uses the concept of service regimes to analyze existing sanitation infrastructure and services and their respective costs. The service regimes investigated are the sewage regime and the fecal sludge (FS) regime. The results show that approximately 56% of the fecal flow in Kampala is estimated as ‘safely managed’. The results also show that the annual per capita costs for the sewage regime (USD 186) are more than 13-fold those for the FS regime (USD 14). Additionally, there are large differences in subsidies between the regimes. When allocating public funds, decision-makers are advised to consider (i) number of customers within regimes, (ii) total capital and operating costs of services, (iii) cost allocation between stakeholders, and (iv) infrastructure performance.

McConville, J. R., Kvarnström, E., Maiteki, J. M., & Niwagaba, C. B. (2019). Infrastructure investments and operating costs for fecal sludge and sewage treatment systems in Kampala, Uganda. Urban Water Journal, 1-10.

Trying the new role-playing game RECLAIM

Published 7 January, 2020
By Prithvi Simha

We ended the year 2019 with a very fun activity – trying out a new role-playing game developed by Jennifer McConville and her colleagues. RECLAIM is an exciting, dynamic board game whose main purpose is to act as a learning tool for participatory decision-making on water and sanitation issues. There are several stakeholders represented in the game, and all players are allowed to role play each stakeholder, and collaborate to provide and improve the sanitation situation of their region. The board itself is modular in the sense that it can be arranged to depict that group of players’ cities, be it a peri-urban area in Uganda or the urban area of central Stockholm. Not only did we have a lot of fun role playing, but we also found it to be quite intuitive. At the end of the game, we as players reflected on how RECLAIM can be a great tool that can help community members to come together, share, and help understand each other’s perspective on sanitation and how such games provide an ideal platform to make that happen.

Role-playing and gaming are active learning tools, which are useful for learning relationships between technology and society, problem solving in complex situations and communication. For further information about RECLAIM, get in touch with Jennifer McConville at Kretsloppsteknik.

SIDA International Training Programme at Kretsloppsteknik

Published 5 December, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

Björn demonstrates how to use a PeePoo toilet *during his lecture*

Earlier this week, a few members of Kretsloppsteknik hosted a group of SIDA’s International Training Programme participants in Uppsala. NIRAS on behalf of SIDA implements a number of International Training Programmes. Kretsloppsteknik is involved as part of this program through NIRAS with focus on participants from both Asian and African countries. During these visits, we teach, present, and do technology demonstration through field visits talking about safe nutrient recycling, source-separating sanitation systems, management of organic wastes, socio-technical systems analysis, etc.

Capturing nutrients in Urine: Socio-technical evaluation of urine concentrating technologies

Published 25 November, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

The sanitation sector needs innovations with minimal environmental impacts and maximum resource recovery. Separate collection and treatment of urine is one such method. Technologies for dehydrating or concentrating urine are part of the emerging innovations that aim to increase resource recovery from human waste streams. Urine contains a majority of the nutrients found in human excreta, but also large volumes of liquid. Concentrating technologies have the potential to convert human urine into commercial-quality fertilizer and reduce transport and treatment costs. Several technologies are now being piloted around the world, however holistic studies of socio-cultural, institutional and environmental impacts are lacking.

The aim of this project is to investigate the potential for increasing the use of urine concentrating technologies. The proposed study uses a socio-technical approach to meet the following objectives: 1) investigate the potential for urine concentration to support global sustainability goals, 2) investigate the technical and market readiness of urine concentrating systems, and 3) study the socio-technical dynamics influencing urine concentrating systems in order to identify possible development strategies.

The Susana webinar on Sanitation and Employment aired 21/11 is now available online

Published 22 November, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

In this seminar, moderated by Alejandro Jiménez of the Stockholm International Water Institute, different aspects of employment in the sanitation sector are discussed. Rémi Kaupp from WaterAid tells us about the findings presented in a new WHO report on the Health, Safety and Dignity of Sanitation Workers. Martin Mawajje from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) describe how the emptying services in informal settlements can be formalised using a case from Kampala, Uganda as example. Daniel Ddiba, from the Stockholm Environment Institute tells us about a tool they have developed called REWAMP that can estimate and compare the circular economy potential of sanitation derived products from different sanitation technologies. The last presenter is Cecilia Lalander from our group that gives an example on how black soldier fly larvae treatment can be implemented by a sanitation entrepreneur.

Global Webinar: Sanitation and Employment World Toilet Day 2019

Published 15 November, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

“Ask not what employment can do for sanitation – ask what sanitation can do for employment”.

Commemorating World Toilet Day 2019, Sida and partnersincluding SEI, SLU, WaterAid, SIWI, Univ of KwaZulu-Natal and SuSanA invite you to an inspirational webinar about the excellent yet untapped drivers for business, entrepreneurship and job opportunity that the sanitation value chain represents. While doing so, we will bring attention to critical challenges that workers in the sanitation industry often face and the needed actions being taken to tackle them.

Come and join the conversation on Thursday 21 November at 14:00-15.30 CET to learn more about improving the business of sanitation, for the sanitation workforce and the global communities they serve.

Join the webinar here: https://seint.adobeconnect.com/seiwebinar/

Chea Eliyan joins Kretsloppsteknik as a PhD student

Published 18 October, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

I am Chea Eliyan, and I recently joined the Environmental Engineering Research Group of the Department of Energy and Technology, SLU, in a sandwich mode Ph.D. program. As part of this program, I will spend half the time here at SLU and another 50% time at my home country, Cambodia at the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP). The SIDA-RUPP bilateral program fully supports this study as well as RUPP’s research capacity development.

Tristan Martin, PhD Student from INRA at Kretsloppsteknik

Published 15 October, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

My name is Tristan Martin and I’m a PhD student from France. I’m working at the French National institute for agricultural research on the agronomic valorization of urine in France and the associated environmental impacts of this valorization. My work in France consists mainly in doing agronomical experiments with different urine based fertilizers to compare their agronomical efficiencies (yields, NH₃ volatilization, N₂O emissions …). I will be there in Uppsala for 3 month to work on the second part of my PhD which aims to evaluate the impacts of the whole valorization chains (treatment, transport …) using life cycle assessment methodology.

Social aspects of recycling household wastes: perspectives from Jordan

Published 30 September, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

We were at the Hashemite University in Jordan last week, teaching a group of young students how we can safely recycle different household waste fractions. As part of this week-long course, we organised a day of interactive seminars and a role playing game to improve awareness among the students about the psychology, decision making, and socio-technical aspects of recycling waste.

Teaching students in Jordan about safe nutrient recycling

Published 24 September, 2019
By Prithvi Simha

This week, we (Sahar Dalahmeh, Mikael Pell, Annika Nordin, Cecilia Lalander, and Prithvi Simha) are in Jordan, conducting a 1-week course on recycling of various household waste fractions. The course is given at the Hashemite University, located about 50 km away from the capital city Amman. A group of about 20 very enthusiastic and inquistive students are learning about various topics such as wastewater microbiology, hygienisation, urine diversion and dehydration, vermi- and black soldier fly composting, on-site wastweater treatment, etc.