Tag: Source-separating sanitation systems

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 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!).

The SLU Drying team travelled to Gotland join Jenna Senecal (Sanitation360), Johannes Obermeier (Brewmaster, Gotlands Bryggeri), and the Science Park Gotland team to take part in the tasting of beer brewed at Gotlands Bryggeri. This special event evaluated the quality of barley that was grown last summer (2021) on Gotland with urine fertilizer. The Master Brewer was happy with the results!

This is part of a three year project called Växtnäringskretslopp till uthållig ölproduktion (N2 Brew for short) that is looking into the service chain of recycling urine as a fertilizer. Urine contains the same nutrients used to grow the food that we consume – in better managing the natural resource found in our wastewater, we can build a circular economy while protecting water quality. This beer is not for sale, but keep posted about how the next brew from 2022 barley harvest preforms.

This Friday, on 8^th of April, Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is hosting its 1^st seminar as a part of mini-series that focus on Sustainable Sanitation Solutions. Here, Håkan Jönsson and Jennifer McConvile will talk about safe and sustainable ways to recover nutrients, water and energy from sanitation systems. The seminar will take place at SLU but can also be attended digitally.

If you are interested in finding out more about EWB and upcoming seminar(s), click here.

 

Last week several members of the group had the pleasure of visiting two ecological housing collectives situated in Stockholm – Gebers and Understenshöjden. They invited us into their homes and gave us a glimpse of their lives and shared with us experiences on how it has been to live with urine-separating toilets for more than 25 years.

Visitors and the residents of both communities also had an opportunity to listen to a lecture by Tove Larsen, a renowned researcher from Eawag, where she shared what positive impacts urine diversion has and can have on the world and the future of nutrient recycling.

After the lecture, Jenna presented our version for future of urine recycling and talked about the benefits of drying urine onsite and how this can be done using Sanitation360’s solutions. The day was then concluded with interesting discussions, valuable exchange of information and a promise of future collaborations.

 

Prithvi spoke with Agnes Bondesson, SLU Global’s International Scientific Communications Officer about the ongoing food and fertiliser price inflation. Check out the article here: https://internt.slu.se/en/news-originals/2022/3/can-urine-help-save-food-production-under-crises/ or read below –

With the current state in the world, seen to conflicts and climate change, the question about food production in case of short-term or long-term crises has been emphasised. Sweden has a solid food production, but it is a production vulnerable for disruptions of imported products such as fertilisers, diesel, pesticides, seeds and protein feed as well as electricity. One of the main components in conventional plant production is the use of imported fertilisers. When the climate crisis, higher prices and insecurity in import forces us to rethink our ways to use artificial fertilisers there is a need to see other solutions. 

A seminar was held at the Norwegian water association in Oslo focusing on circular sanitation solutions in Norway. Björn participated and presented his vision for of the sanitation system of the future – being off-grid and fully circular inside a house. The vision is far ahead of the discussions about how we should treat our wastewater today. Most systems needed for a fully circular sanitation system already exist today, though they are still yet to be combined.

At the moment, Norway is facing major investments in the water and wastewater sector with a goal to bring down the environmental pollution. Hamse Kjerstadius from NSVA in presented their system with source separation installed in the city center of Helsingborg. His motivation for this implementation was economy and the environment. There were also several presentations from Norwegian delegates showing that under some specific circumstances source separating systems are economically more feasible when combining local and central treatments. One important factor lifted at the seminar, and that is true for Sweden as well, is that many of the regulations and legislations are unclear when it comes to sanitation that is not based on current conventional system.

The seminar was attended by people from academia, industry, and municipalities, where all were united in the vision of source separating system as the wastewater technology of the future.

Link to program

Alkaline urine dehydration, function and system.