Tag: Source-separating sanitation systems

Nutrient stocks, flows and balances for the Bolivian agri-food system: Can recycling human excreta close the nutrient circularity gap?

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Availability of nutrients from human excreta in Bolivia in 2018.

In our latest article in #Frontiers in Environmental Sciences, Luis Fernando Perez Mercado, Cesar Ariel Perez Mercado, Bjorn Vinneras and Prithvi Simha analyse the current state of nutrient stocks, flows, and balances of the agri-food system in #bolivia. Their findings show that there is sufficient stock of #nitrogen and #phosphorus in human excreta to meet the deficit of nutrients in the food system, as well as regional nutrient surpluses that are not recirculated today. Today, Bolivia recirculates 44% of nitrogen and 74% of phosphorus used in agriculture. But we believe that circularity is going to decrease considerably over the coming years, as the national strategy to address nutrient deficits has been to increase the domestic production of synthetic fertilisers (See shorturl.at/abNQV).

Calculating mass balances always seems simple on paper. But it is difficult in practice, especially when you perform it at national, regional, and municipal levels, as we have done in this article. They usually don’t add up. Here, they also suggest how deforestation and depletion of forest nutrient stocks could be a reason why our national-level balance does not add up.

The full artile is available here: https://lnkd.in/d5dt42Qf

Continue reading Nutrient stocks, flows and balances for the Bolivian agri-food system: Can recycling human excreta close the nutrient circularity gap?

Almedalen 2022 Presentations by Jenna Senecal

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On July 3rd Jenna Senecal presented at Almedalen 2022. The first presentation was about our urine treatment technology (link to the video presentation found here https://youtu.be/h0L8WeJIACw). The second was a panel discussion about youth and sustainable food systems hosted by SIANI, World Food Program, and Agroforestry Network (link to the video presentation found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_ue8_ttYws).

 

Barley plant trial on Gotland is growing well

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On Gotland, we have a 350 m2 field trial growing barley that has been fertilized with dried urine (collected on Gotland in summer 2021 with TouchDown), mineral fertilizer or no fertilizer. This summer, we complemented the urine fertilizer with mineral phosphorus to match the recommended fertilizer needs of malting barley. The fertilized plants are growing well, while the none fertilized plants are shorter. We will harvest in late August and test the grain quality.

  • Jenna Senecal inspecting the barley plants, July 2nd ;
Photo: Samuel Blyth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Barley plants (day 54) fertilized with urine (left), mineral fertilizer (right) or no fertilizer (middle) ;
Photo: Samuel Blyth

Is it time to flush the water closet?

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Hear Björn Vinnerås together with other researchers talk about the future water systems in program 1 at Swedish national radio. The focus of the program is the water closet, its function today and if it is possible to have different solutions in the future. Björn presents the research the group perform regarding the production of a dry urine based fertilizer.

Click here to access the talk (in Swedish).

SLU’s Urine Drying in Deutsche Welle (DW)

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Beatrice Christofaro captures the argument quite well as to why source-separated fractions like #urine should be recycled in this #DeutscheWelle (DW) article.

The way we manage nutrients in our wastewater and produce food globally is not sustainable. Countries are vulnerable changes in supply of fertilizers, as they’re produced using non-renewable feedstock such as natural gas, coal, and phosphate rock. Majority of the fertilisers used globally are also produced by a handful of countries. So its not a big suprise to us that fertiliser prices have soared recently and food price inflation has increased.
But we can make food production more resilient. Read the article and see how the #SLU and #Sanitation360 solution could increase local food security.

Read Full Article here: https://www.dw.com/en/are-we-flushing-away-the-answer-to-our-fertilizer-shortages/a-61737037

2022 Barley season has begun!

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Jenna Senecal joined Bo and Freda from Hushållnings sällskapet in seeding the barley. We have four treatments: no fertilizer, mineral fertilizer, Uppsala Fertilizer and Gotland Fertilizer (that last two are urine based and have been stabilized with different types of media). It is very exciting to have reached this stage where the urine fertilizer is being applied with conventional farming equipment.  Keep posted for the performance – last year’s harvest went great!

Photo by Jenna Senecal

Oliver Pay joins the Urine Drying Project

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My name is Oliver Pay. I am originally from the UK, but I now live in Finland and study environmental engineering at Tampere University of Applied Sciences, where I have just finished my second year. At SLU, I will be part of the urine drying research team. My responsibilities at SLU are to research efficiencies of urine drying systems, and to determine how long a system can be used before there needs to be chemical replacement. I will be here until the end of July this year.

 

Jenna joins the Swedish Tech Delegation to South Africa

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Jenna Senecal joined the Swedish Tech Delegation to Cape Town, South Africa during the end of April 2022. This was part of Cape Town / Stockholm Connect, which is an internationalization project and co-creation platform where the goal is to strengthen tech and investor ties between Sweden and South Africa. During the week, Jenna met with other Swedish companies looking at establishing in South Africa and several South African startups looking at their growth potential.

A highlight for Jenna was meeting Birger Lundgren and Michèle Spooner who are working hard to bring affordable and sustainable sanitation to schools (as a start!).

Photo by Birger Lundgren