Grantee Research Project Results
2021 Progress Report: 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 , Sund, Nick , Young, Summer , Hershey, Emma , Alig, Sam , Ketter, Hannah , Rycewicz, Audrey
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 Period Covered by this Report: December 1, 2020 through November 30,2021
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:
In 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 urban slums of the developing world, population density, poverty, limited water access, and informal or illegal status of these communities precludes 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 have the potential to degrade and leach contaminants into soils and waterways. In addition, steep, narrow alleys prevent vehicle access, which results in latrines being emptied into empty lots and public walkways, thus further exposing residents to disease risk and other consequences of environmental contaminants.
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 and provides not only basic sanitation, but needed wastewater infrastructure, non-potable water use, as well as the salvage of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus for healthy plant growth. With the support of the 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 that can be adopted, used and maintained by users of this service.
Progress Summary:
January 2021-June 2021: Permitting and installation in Eugene Oregon
June 2021 – October 2021: Testing of functioning at scale system for four months under real world conditions.
In Phase I, our goal was to implement this project in the informal settlements of Lima, Peru. However, the project ran into significant hurdles with the COVID-19 crisis and the planned research was not able to continue as Peru has suffered the highest per capita death toll of any country from COVID-19 to date. We are still in close contact with our collaborators at the Container-Based Sanitation Alliance and one of its founding members of members, x-runner. The CBS alliance is a partnership between the private sector, NGOs and research institutions focused on solving the global problem of inadequate water and sanitation in low-income urban communities. The CBS alliance works to promote knowledge sharing and learning; to create a set of common CBS standards and guidelines; to enable scale; to create partnerships; and to extend collective impact. X-runner continues to service over 3600 users and boasts a 93% satisfaction rate even during the pandemic. Members and staff from these organizations are still being consulted to ensure the feasibility of our concepts as we move forward with field tests in the United States.
Given the prolonged nature of the pandemic, the team has shifted to installing the sanitary green space planters in a tiny home community, Opportunity Village Eugene (OVE) in Eugene, Oregon. We are working with OVE which offers transitional housing for persons experiencing houselessness and provides a path to permanent housing allowing the project to remain focused on water and sanitation for vulnerable communities. The goal is now to continue to improve and test the design under real world conditions over the next several months of the EPA P3 grant. The goal is to see if the performance of the prototype plantes is maintained under real world conditions with non-simulated greywater. The field installation system is connected to a sewer hook-up so if the prototype fails there is no risk.
Future Activities:
- The goal going forward is to verify the FIB (E. coli) reduction is maintained under real world conditions with non-simulated greywater. FIB levels in the treated greywater will be measured using IDEXX methodology. The field installation system at the tiny home community is connected to a sewer hook-up in Eugene, Oregon so if the prototype fails there is no risk. Permitting is actively occurring at the time of this report.
- Work with the tiny home community, Opportunity Village Eugene has created a foundation for future work with partners in both Eugene and Portland, Oregon with the expressed goal of providing better water and sanitation services to those in vulnerable situations.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 5 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
water, land, soil, human health vulnerability, sensitive populations, pathogens, bacteria, effluent, discharge, restoration, habitat, sustainable development, disinfection, community-based, observation, biology, engineering, social science, ecology,Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe 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.