FoodsecURe: Food security through better sanitation: the case of urine recycling

The most nutrient-rich but poorly recycled fraction of domestic wastewater is human urine. If it is collected and treated separately, urine can be safely recycled as fertilizer to crops. About one-quarter of the nitrogen and phosphorus demand in agriculture globally can be met by human urine-derived nutrients. However, large-scale recycling of human urine is hindered by many barriers —technological, health, socio-cultural, economic, environmental, and institutional.

The goal of the project FoodsecURe is to systematically address these barriers and mainstream human urine. Over a four-year project involving 17 partners from Norway, Ethiopia, and Sweden, the project will meet the following objectives:

(i) to overcome technological barriers, a communal-scale system for collection and safe conversion of human urine to solid fertilizers will be developed to validate the technology of alkaline dehydration;

(ii) to address human health and safety barriers, the fertilizer will be co-tested with smallholder farmers growing local crops in Ethiopia, with focus on crop quality and the fate of disease-causing microorganisms and micropollutants;

(iii) to overcome socio-cultural and barriers, willingness and behavioral intentions of different actors including cultural taboos and phobias will be analyzed;

(iv) to overcome institutional and economic barriers, new sustainable business models will be developed; and(v) to overcome participatory and communication barriers, science-policy-stakeholder linkages will be strengthened.

Human urine contains essential nutrients (e.g., nitrogen and phosphorus) required for plant growth. Hence, urine can serve as a “free” and locally available nutrient source. Successful, low-cost urine-diverting toilets (UDTs) that separately collect urine have been developed in Scandinavia and in Europe and are being manufactured at large scale in Africa. But why can't we recycle urine at scale?

There exist many barriers to urine recycling at scale. There are technological barriers because it is not viable to collect, store, transport, and apply liquid urine as fertilizer. There is a potential human health and safety barrier, as farmers and consumers may have concerns with possible communicable pathogens or micropollutants present in urine. There are also socio-cultural barriers to accepting urine recycling because of limited understanding of the market, farmers’ requirements, and decision-making processes underlying the use of UBFs; prevailing traditional practices and taboos surrounding human excreta; and limited insights into stakeholders’ willingness to engage in new sanitation systems. Stakeholders also have concerns with the environmental risks of urine recycling associated with pharmaceutical residues and micropollutants in urine (and therefore in UBFs). There are institutional barriers because implementation and scaling-up of sanitation systems that make productive use of human wastes in agriculture are inhibited by weak, non-existent, and sometimes prohibiting legislation. Economic barriers to urine recycling are also present. People and businesses are unwilling to make new investments in equipment and know-how, as adoption could entail high switching costs.

The overall objective of the FoodsecURe project is to improve productivity, livelihood, and adaptive capacity of smallholder agriculture to changing climate and socio-economic conditions in Ethiopia by mainstreaming a safe sanitation value chain surrounding the collection, safe treatment, transportation, and application of UBFs. 

Specifically, the project will:

1. Develop, implement, and field-test communal scale collection and safe conversion of human urine to produce solid UBFs;

2. Safely process and apply solid UBFs on smallholder farms growing local crops, with a focus on crop quality and fate nutrients, heavy metals, pathogens and micropollutants;

3. Analyse the willingness and behavioral intentions of stakeholders, cultural taboos and phobia, technological diffusion, and environmental performance of urine recycling;

4. Develop new sustainable business models and value chains for mainstreaming communal-scale urine recycling; and

5. Strengthen science-policy-stakeholder linkages.

FoodSecURe will be implemented and utilize the existing UDTs in communal public areas in Bahir-Dar, Ethiopia. Due to a lack of technology and limited awareness of users, government, and institutions, these UDTs were misused, and no UBF has been produced from the UDTs. The various tasks are implemented through a multi-disciplinary and multi-actor approach by scientists specializing in social sciences, business management, agronomy, parasitology, environmental engineering, environmental science, and soil science.

Email: foodsecure@nibio.no