A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign helps define the global relationship between sustainable agriculture and sanitation technology.
Photo by L. Brian Stauffer
The future connection between human waste, sanitation technology and sustainable agriculture is becoming more evident. According to research directed by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Jeremy Guest, countries could be moving closer to using human waste as fertilizer, closing the loop to more circular, sustainable economies.
A new study characterizes the spatial distribution of human urine-derived nutrients – nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – and agricultural fertilizer demand to define supply-demand location typologies, their prevalence across the globe and the implications for resource recovery. The findings are published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.
“The total amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium largely remains constant in our bodies, once we stop growing,” said Guest, who also serves as the acting associate director for research at the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment at the U. of I. “Whatever comes in through food and drink must come out in our urine, feces and sweat. Knowing that, we can estimate how much of each of these nutrients is in a population’s bodily waste if we know their diet.”
Previous studies by Guest and others have assessed the potential for recovering the nutrients from human waste across the globe and identified locations with a surplus of human waste-derived nutrients relative to the local demand for agricultural fertilizers.
“The new study is the first to describe human waste-derived nutrient supply-demand location relationships using a single mathematical equation,” Guest said. “The quality of sanitation infrastructure varies greatly across the globe, as do people’s diets and the availability of land suitable for agriculture. Having the means to characterize and quantitatively compare a location’s nutrient-recovery potential can go a long way to better inform decision-makers when it comes to future sanitation and agriculture policy.”
The team performed extensive numerical and geographic analyses of dietary, population, sanitation and agricultural data from 107 countries to accomplish this quantitative characterization at the global scale. The investigation revealed three distinct supply-demand typologies: countries with a co-located supply-demand; countries with a dislocated supply-demand; and countries with diverse supply-demand proximities.
The United States and Australia, for example, fall under the dislocated supply-demand typology. They have intensive agriculture in areas far from large cities, thus the human waste-derived nutrient supply is far away from where it is needed, Guest said. Even with advanced sanitation infrastructure in place, this means that nutrients would need to be transported over large distances, either as heavy fluids or converted into concentrated crystalline products. Economically speaking, Guest said, it would make sense to work with a concentrated product to implement a human waste-derived fertilizer in these countries.
The study reports that in countries with co-located supply-demand typologies like India, Nigeria and Uganda, human populations are more substantively in the proximity of agricultural areas, making local reuse possible. In many communities with co-located supply-demand, however, there is a need for improved sanitation infrastructure. Guest said implementing a human waste-derived fertilizer program could be highly beneficial to sanitation and agriculture in these places.
Countries like Brazil, Mexico, China and Russia exhibit a continuum of co-location to dislocation of nutrient supply and demand. The study reports that policymakers would need to approach human waste-derived nutrient use with more regionalized strategies and a range of local reuse and transport approaches. “Higher income countries in this group may have the infrastructure and economic support for various technologies, but those with limited financial resources would require prioritization of resource-recovery technology in some areas,” Guest said.
The team was surprised to find the typologies corresponded closely to the United Nations Human Development Index.
“Higher HDI-scoring countries like the U.S., Western Europe and Australia tend to fall in the dislocated supply-demand typology and lower HDI-scoring countries tend to fit the co-located supply-demand typology. Of course, there are exceptions, but we did not expect to find such a strong correlation,” Guest said.
The team hopes this research will help clarify the salient economic, sanitation and agricultural characteristics of countries across the globe so that decision-makers can prioritize investment, policies and technologies that will advance goals for a circular economy and the provision of sanitation to all, Guest said.
Desarae Echevarria, a former Illinois civil and environmental engineering graduate student, is the lead author of the study.
Original Article: Nutrient-rich human waste poised to sustain agriculture, improve economies
More from: University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Human waste-derived nutrients
- Should Bioplastics Be Allowed in Organic Compost?
The USDA will decide if synthetic, biodegradable food packaging and service ware should be allowed as a feedstock in certified organic compost.
- What You Should Eat According to Your Hormones—An RD Shares the ‘4 Seasons’ You Need To Know for Cycle Syncing
F or people who menstruate, cycle syncing can be an empowering way to take ownership of how hormones impact your body. For athletes, this may mean adopting menstrual-cycle-syncing workouts, which ...
- Scientists replace fishmeal in aquaculture with microbial protein derived from soybean processing wastewater
Scientists have successfully replaced half of the fishmeal protein in the diets of farmed Asian seabass with a 'single cell protein' cultivated from microbes in soybean processing wastewater, paving ...
- Your Coffee Is About to Change, Whether You’re Ready or Not
like ramón seeds from Guatemala and caffeine derived from green tea grown in India, but Kleitsch said they’re looking to add even more upcycled ingredients. Food waste is a major contributor to ...
- Health experts discuss optimizing human performance through nutrition during SXSW
“Optimizing Human Performance Through Nutrition” provided a platform to discuss nutrition research and readiness in the Army and professional sports and highlighted solutions to optimize ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Human waste-derived nutrients
[google_news title=”” keyword=”human waste-derived nutrients” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Human waste-derived fertilizer program
- ‘This is Chernobyl’: Texas ranchers say ‘forever chemicals’ in waste-based fertilizers ruined their land
The fertilizer maker says its products are safe, and that the government supports using it as a valuable practice that recycles nutrients to farmland.
- The future of fertilizer? Pee, says this Brattleboro institute.
The institute, its partners and others in the sustainability industry see the practice — dubbed “peecycling” — as a cheap, easy and less-destructive method than synthetic fertilizer.
- Turning human waste into fertilizer? Lakeland is considering it with a $120K study
T he city of Lakeland is thinking about getting into the fertilizer business — and using tons of human waste it already collects to do it. Commissioners recently voted to spend $120,000 on a six-month ...
- Could We Power Flights With Human Waste?
Sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) derived from human waste is being explored as a promising alternative to fossil fuels for powering flights. Governments worldwide are pushing for greener aviation ...
- Lakeland considers composting treated human waste to generate revenue
Lakeland leaders are considering whether the city could turn human waste into profit ... city's biosolids are utilized as a low-grade fertilizer. When the waste does not meet Class AA standards ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Human waste-derived fertilizer program
[google_news title=”” keyword=”human waste-derived fertilizer program” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]