One of the lectures from 1999 - 2007 at Technical University of Denmark - DTU - Environment & Ressources

1. Ecological Sanitation
Sustainable Sanitation
Arne Backlund
www.backlund.dk

2. Only an Appetizer
• Reflection in a complex modern
society
• Alternative paradigm
• Redefining and redesigning
• Alternative sanitation
• Alternative components and systems

3. Reflex or Reflection

4. Reflection
• Mixing & Dilution – best solution to polution?
• Problems are not automaticly solved with more
of the same thinking (Paradigm) that created the
problem in the first place.
• Why do human beings with two outlets create
and use toilets with only one inlet?

5. Roman Stone Toilet Seat

6. Cloaca Maxima in Rome

7. Roman Aquaduct

9. Millennium Development
Goal (MDG)
• Target -
to reduce by half the
proportion of people without
access to basic sanitation by
2015

10. International Year of
Sanitation 2008
• Raising awareness of the importance of sanitation and
its impact on achieving other MDGs, from three
perspectives: hygiene, household sanitation and
wastewater.
• Encouraging Governments and its partners to promote
and implement policies and actions for meeting the
sanitation target.
• Mobilizing communities, particularly women’s groups,
towards changing sanitation and hygiene practices
through sanitation-health-education campaigns.

14. Single household level
• Direct use after collection is
acceptable on the single household
level.
• Additional stricter recommendations
may apply on a local level , in the
case of a frequent fecal cross-
contamination.

18. Alternative Paradigm of Closing The
Loop in Alternative Sanitation
• Ecology
• Sustainability
• Resources
• Source control
• Participation
• Decision making

19. Alternative Paradigm of Closing The
Loop in Alternative Sanitation
• Alternative questions and answers
• Different streams and flows
• Source control
• Nutrients, organic material, water etc.
• Diversion and concentrated collection
• Reuse of resources to plant growth
• Redefining
• Redesigning

20. Flow or Stream of Material

21. Flow or Stream of Material
• Urine
• Faeces
• Toilet paper
• Flush water
• Grey water

22. Flow or Stream of Material
• We almost excrete the same amount of
nutrients as we consume
• Human urine contributes with only 1 % of
the volume of household wastewater but
contains 80 % of N, 55 % of P and 60 %
of K in household wastewater and less
than 0.6 % of cadmium and 0.06 % of
lead

23. Alternative Approach
and Design
• Human urine (yellow water or High Quality
Anthropogenic Nutrient Solutions) and
human faeces
• Diverted and concentrated collection
• Waterless or reduced water flush
• Alternative sanitary components
• Alternative sanitary systems

24. Selected Components
• Waterless urinals
• No-Mix/Diverting toilet stools
• Collection and composting units
• Anaerobic fermentation
• Willow evapotranspiration bed
• Willow plantation

25. Waterless Urinal

26. Waterless Urinal

27. Waterless Urinal
• 100 % collection used by men
• 100 % concentration
• Low storage volume
• Concentrated fertilizer
• No accepted solution for women

28. Please sit down to pee

33. Diverting Waterless Toilet installed
in an Allotment Garden

34. Diverting Waterless Toilet installed
in an Allotment Garden

35. Urine Collection in an Allotment
Garden

36. Irrigating and Fertilizing

37. Drip Irrigation

38. Drip Irrigation

39. Drip Irrigation

40. Ventilation

44. Sisimiut Greenland

45. Opening of Greenland
Innovation Center September
2006

46. Toilet in Sisimiut Greenland

47. The old chemical closet

52. Composter BIOKUB

53. Hiking Huts on the path
Sisimiut - Kangerlussuaq

54. Hiking Hut

55. Hiking hut at Itteneq

56. Hiking Hut Nerumaq East

58. Defaecation Area (Mexico)

59. A Toilet Ruin (Mexico)

60. A Quickly installed No-Mix Toilet System
for Rough Conditions

61. Traditional Pit Latrine
Flies

62. Materials & Treatment
Made of:
• Industrially Recycled Poly Propylene
• Reinforced With Glass Fibre
Treatment of Product Waste:
• Incineration - Leaves Only Water, & Glass
Carbon Dioxide
• Recycling

63. Easy to Transport
• Light Weight
• Foldable
• Stackable

64. Rescue 25 – Ready for Use

66. Diverting Waterless Toilet
• Estimated values
• 100 % urine collection for most men
• 80 – 100 % for most women
• 0 – 50 % for very few women
• 60 – 100 % concentration
• Very small amounts of nutrients lost
during proper storage.

67. Diverting Toilet with Waterless
Collection of Faeces in a Batch

69. Composting of Faeces
• Collection of faeces
• Batch composting
• Continous composting

70. Handling of Faeces

71. Composting of Faeces

72. Continous Composting

73. Continous Composting

74. Double Flushing Diverting/ No-
Mix Toilet Stool
• ESTIMATED VALUES FOR URINE
• Average collection - 80 %
• Concentration 25 % - 100 %
• Very small amounts of nutrients lost
during proper storage.

75. Roediger No-Mix double flush

76. User Information

77. Møns Museumsgård

80. Waterless Urinal at Møns
Museumsgård

81. Two 3 m3 Urine Containers

82. Dewatering and Composting
• Double flushing diverting/ No-Mix Toilet
• ”KAGGEN” Dewatering and Composting

83. After One Year of
Collection in Kaggen

84. After One Year Composting
in Kaggen

85. After One Year Composting
in Kaggen

86. After One Year Composting
in Kaggen

87. After Further Eight Months
in a Garden Composter

88. After Further Eight Months
in a Garden Composter

89. After Further Eight Months
in a Garden Composter

90. Storage - Composting
• Total reduction in volume - 88 %
• Big losses of nutrients
• High humidity – 81.8 – 77.0 %
• Low temperature 3 – 21.4 degrees C.
• Large reduction in indicator bacterias
• Nice looking and smelling end product

91. Separator

92. Ekoporten Norrköping

93. Separator
Estimated values for particle outlet
• 4.0 – 8.8 % DM and 2.7 – 5.8 % VS
• Ideal 10 % DM
• Ideal 80 % of DM and VS
• Ideal 70 % of N, P and K
• Worst case 0.22 % DM and 0.16 % VS

94. Constant Vacuum System

95. Constant Vacuum System

96. Lübeck Flintenbreite

97. Lübeck Flintenbreite

98. Vacuum On Demand (VOD)

99. Diverting VOD Toilet

100. VOD Toilet

101. VOD Toilet

102. VOD Components

103. VOD to Sewage

104. VOD 12V to Collection Tank

105. VOD 12V to Composter

106. VOD 230V Diverting Toilet
• ESTIMATED VALUES
• Household power consumption 4 kWh
• Concentration of DM 1.9 – 5.1 %
• Concentration of VS 1.7 – 4.8 %

107. WILLOW EVAPOTRANS-
SPIRATION BED IN DENMARK

108. Short-Rotation Willow
Biomass Plantations
Irrigated and Fertilised
with Wastewaters

116. Willow Evapotranspiration Beds
WILLOW EVAPOTRANSPIRATION
BED AT MARJATTA Tappernøje

118. Marjatta Evapotranspiration Bed

119. Digging and Preparing

120. 0.7 mm LDPE Lining

121. Gravel, Fibertex and Pipe

123. Planting Willow

124. Technical Data
• Plants on 556 m2 surface, 50.5 m2/p
• Willow clones 78-195 + 78-082, 2400 Sticks
• Total surface, 707 m2, 64 m2/p
• 690 m3 over fibre textile, 150 m3 under
• Estimated water storage volume, 35 %
• 520 mm wastewater/a,11 p, 80-90 l/p/a
• 512 kg N/a, 95 kg P/a and 188 kg K/a

125. Precipitation and Evaporation
• Average 30-years precipitation 562 mm
• Average 1992-96 + 1999 769 mm
• 1993 910 mm
• 1994 970 mm
• 1999 907 mm
• Penman evaporation 572 mm
• Evapotranspiration 1310 - 1370 mm

126. Biomass Growth and
Evapotranspiration
Biomass growth
• 1992 3 t DM/ha/a
• 1992-1994 14.4 t DM/ha/a
• 1996-1999 8.5 t DM/ha/a
Evapotranspiration
• 1992-1996 1301 mm/a
• 1999 1366 mm/a

127. Results
• Good running stability
• Good evapotranspiration, 1310 – 1370
mm/a
• Up to 60 % capacity used for rainwater
• Only 30 – 40 % storage volume in bed
• No indications of heavy metals as limiting
factor for future handling of soil
• Sodium-cloride a limiting factor but can be
pumped out during low water levels

128. Further Developement
• Potential use of source controle sanitation to
reduce the amount of sodium chloride and surplus
of nutrient directed to the bed.
• Use of optimal willow clones with a even bigger
evapotranspiration potential in order to minimise
the surface and cost of the bed.
• Discharge of rainwater from the surface before
contact with the wastewater to minimise volume,
surface and cost of the bed.
• Raising the pore volume in the beds from 35 %
up to 80 %.
• Easy access to pump out sodium chloride