Swiss Institute scoops CHF 75K prize for wastewater recycling project

The 2008 Award for Transdisciplinary Research – carrying a prize of CHF 75,000 (about €43,000) – has been won by the Novaquatis urine source separation project, based at EAWAG, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.

The award is made under the aegis of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences “td-net for Transdisciplinary Research”, in recognition of the project managers’ commitment to transdisciplinary research. The managers integrated environmental, engineering and social scientific research, as well as seeking the cooperation of non-academic partners at an early stage.

Urine accounts for only 1 per cent of the total volume of wastewater, but it contains up to 80 per cent of all the nutrients. If it is processed separately, wastewater treatment plants can be reduced in size, water protection can be improved, and nutrients can be recycled.

For Tove Larsen, who received the award along with Judit Lienert at the 2008 Transdisciplinary Conference in Zurich, it is quite clear: “It’s standard practice for garden waste to be separately collected. So surely it should also be possible one day for the six kilograms of concentrated phosphorus produced each year by a family of four to be separately processed.”

According to EAWAG, separate treatment of wastewater streams opens up new possibilities, and there are many reasons for adopting urine source separation (“NoMix”) technology on a large scale. This applies particularly to emerging countries such as China, where sewerage and wastewater treatment facilities cannot keep up with the rapid pace of urbanisation, and water pollution arising from domestic wastewater is a growing problem.

The researchers will use the prize money from this award to support further research to put this approach into practice. Current limitations include that the sanitary industry, as yet, sees little commercial potential in the NoMix technology, and that the fertiliser produced from urine cannot currently compete with low-cost artificial products.