Grantee Research Project Results
Sanitary Green Space: a Closed-Looped Sanitation System for GrowingGreen Communities
EPA Grant Number: SU839467Title: Sanitary Green Space: a Closed-Looped Sanitation System for GrowingGreen Communities
Investigators: Russel, Kory C , DeHeer, Adam , Hershey, Emma , Sund, Nick , Young, Summer
Current Investigators: Russel, Kory C , DeHeer, Adam , Sund, Nick , Young, Summer , Hershey, Emma , Alig, Sam , Ketterer, Hana , Hansberger, Dayna , Brunkhorst, Alissa , Eikani, Mia
Institution: University of Oregon
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: December 1, 2018 through November 30, 2019 (Extended to December 31, 2021)
Project Amount: $14,971
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2018) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Safe and Sustainable Water Resources , P3 Awards
Objective:
For most cities within industrialized countries, human wastes are transported from households via sanitary sewer networks to a wastewater treatment plant. For the roughly one billion living in the dense urban slums of the developing world; population density, poverty, limited water access, and the informal or illegal status of their communities prohibit the installation of such resource-intensive, permanent infrastructure.
Many residents in dense urban slums lack access to safe sanitation facilities, resulting in contamination of their drinking water and environmental pollution. In the slums of Lima, Peru residents must often use pit latrines that often leach contaminants into soils and waterways. In addition, narrow alleys prevent vehicle access, which results in latrines being emptied into public walkways and vacant spaces, thus further exposing residents to disease risk and other consequences of environmental contamination.
To address the challenge of urban environmental and water contamination by human waste, we are developing a modular Sanitary Green Space System that uses planting beds to make use of otherwise wasted urine and graywater from households. The closed-loop system mimics larger hydrological and nutrient cycles while providing needed wastewater infrastructure, non- potable water reuse and distribution, and the salvage of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus for healthy plant growth. With the support of the EPA's P3 program, this modular system will not only provide a number of environmental benefits, but will also improve hygiene, safety, and health in public and semi-public spaces both in the United States and around the world.
Approach:
The proposed design is a low-cost and sustainable sanitation system that collects, treats, and reuses household urine and graywater in the creation of publicly accessible green space. Our system will provide needed urine and graywater collection as an extension of an already existing Container-Based Sanitation (CBS) service that currently only collects and compost human excreta. The urine and graywater will then be combined with the compost generated from the CBS service to build soil integrity and provide irrigation within the Sanitary Green Spaces.
The Sanitary Green Space System is a unique and innovative solution for urban slums and other communities lacking sufficient sanitation. Currently, household sanitation requires immense expenditure to construct not only sewer networks but also to ensure adequate water supplies for functionality. Such investments are difficult for municipalities in low- and middle-income communities to execute and even more so in unrecognized slums. Our design is an alternative sanitation system adaptable to various landscape contexts and scales. These Sanitary Green Spaces are customizable and provide not only much wanted vegetation, but also usable public space, thus providing business opportunity, comfortable outdoor living, food production, and more.
Expected Results:
By collaborating with the existing CBS provider x-runner, our project will increase the economic sustainability and efficacy of a community driven business, improving existing infrastructure. By using plants and active soil medium to process these wastes a closed loop and resilient system is created, thus reducing waste, pollution, and nutrient losses as well as eutrophication of waterways. Transpiration from re-vegetated active urban ecosystems will promote increased humidity and therefore reduce the urban heat island effect, regulating temperature extremes in slums.
The expected outcomes of this Sanitary Green Space System will improve quality of life and wellbeing within the community by providing accessible and environmentally safe outdoor space, which does the following: 1) increases physical and mental human health, 2) creates an economically competitive environment by providing positive public space and increasing productivity through wellbeing, and 3) reduces hazardous wastes while providing the framework for a thriving urban ecosystem. 4) Lastly, our system creates accessible green space which is an essential qualification for informal slums to become formally incorporated into the city of Lima, thereby increasing political legitimacy and the economic upward mobility of the community.
Contribution to Pollution Prevention or Control: Our proposal reduces water and general environmental pollution by creating a small scale and low technology liquid waste management system. The reduction of open defecation as well as graywater and urine run-off is directly responsible for reducing exposure to pathogenic material and eutrophication in waterways.
Publications and Presentations:
Publications have been submitted on this project: View all 5 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Sanitation; innovative irrigation; x-runner; graywater, green space; closed-loop system; sustainability; Pamplona Alta, Lima, Peru; wellbeing; hazardous human wastes; political legitimacy; pollution reduction; microclimateProgress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.