Issue 7, 2021

The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda – a review of the progress so far and future development options

Abstract

Sanitation and wastewater management are highly relevant for reaching a number of interconnected sustainable development goals (SDGs), especially SDG 6, the provision of safe drinking water and adequate sanitation for all as well as protection of water resources against pollution, and SDG 14.1, reducing nutrient emissions to the marine environment. Recent evidence increasingly shows that conventional sewer-based wastewater management will not be able to reach these targets. Rather than further optimizing and diffusing this ageing infrastructure paradigm, radical innovations like urine source separation technologies could help to leapfrog towards faster achievement of the SDGs. The technology would simplify on-site sanitation and develop a closed-loop nutrient cycle, thereby allowing for exceptionally high nutrient removal from wastewater and direct reuse in agriculture from the first day of implementation. Radical innovations, however, need decades to materialize. Based on a review of relevant academic and grey literature, we show how the past three decades of development of urine source separation have brought breakthroughs in toilet design and treatment processes, enabling the technology's value chain to reach the brink of maturity. In a short outlook, we discuss how the technology may reach global diffusion over the next decade, with the main remaining challenges relating to the creation of mass-markets for urine-diverting toilets, automation and mass-production of treatment systems, and the legitimation of fertilizer produced from urine in the agricultural sector.

Graphical abstract: The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda – a review of the progress so far and future development options

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Frontier
Submitted
03 Dec. 2020
Accepted
22 Apr. 2021
First published
06 Maijs 2021
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., 2021,7, 1161-1176

The potential contribution of urine source separation to the SDG agenda – a review of the progress so far and future development options

T. A. Larsen, H. Gruendl and C. Binz, Environ. Sci.: Water Res. Technol., 2021, 7, 1161 DOI: 10.1039/D0EW01064B

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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