New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Initiative category

Identify the award category for which this initiative is being submitted
Shaping a circular industrial ecosystem and supporting life-cycle thinking

Email user
mail@anastasiabondar.de

Basic information
Initiative title
HolyShit

Full initiative Title
HolyShit - Let’s put the poop back into the loop

Please provide a short, catchy description of your initiative to be used in communication towards the public.
HolyShit aims to educate citizens about the value of their pee and poop. The food that we eat and digest contains valuable nutrients which are essential in agriculture: phosphorus and nitrogen. HolyShit conveys this message in a playful card game. Furthermore, HolyShit develops public dry toilets in order to collect and compost citizens’ digested food and the valuable nutrients it contains. Let’s put the poop back into the loop!

What was the geographical scope of your intiative?
Regional

Where was your intiative implemented?
Member State(s) and Western Balkans
Germany

If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
City of Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany

Does your initiative address mainly urban or rural issues?
It addresses urban-rural linkages

Does your initiative refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)

Has your initiative benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
No

Has your initiative won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
No

Does your initiative has a minimum level of maturity? The minimum level of maturity is exemplified by stakeholder/ initiative promoter commitment to implement the initiative in practice and a clear methodology /approach.
Yes

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As an individual in partnership with other persons
Please provide the contact details for the intiative promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the intiative).
- First name: Anastasia
  Last name: Bondar
  Gender: Female
  Nationality: Germany
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Weyertal 17
  Town: Köln
  Postal code: 50937
  Country: Germany
  Direct Tel: +49 163 6819539
  E-mail: mail@anastasiabondar.de
  Website: https://anastasiabondar.de
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
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In case my initiative is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my initiative in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
A friend who works in Brussels

Description of the initiative
Please provide a summary of your initiative
HolyShit is currently turning into a start-up that realizes sustainable sanitation solutions for municipalities. Its objective is to raise awareness about the benefits and value of recycling human feces to close global nutrient cycles locally. By providing accessible public dry toilets and a playful communication tool, HolyShit educates humans about the value of and role of poop within the global cycles.

It began with a card game, developed during a Master’s thesis in the context of the research project zirkulierBAR, which is supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research. The game explains the differences between water-based, chemical and dry toilets and the advantages of sustainable sanitation solutions. It was used as a tool to convince and educate government officials, politicians as well as research institutions, funding programs and citizens about the benefits of recycling poop, in order to save water, energy and recover valuable nutrients.

Currently HolyShit is developing public dry toilets in a co-creative process with the city and citizens of Cologne. In order to compost the collected material, HolyShit is being consulted by the champion in the field: Finizio Future Sanitation. Finizio is running Germany's only facility for composting human feces. The recycled humus fertilizer is currently not allowed to be used in agriculture. Therefore, the research project zirkulierBAR together with ten partner organizations including Finizio are woking on scientifically proving the hygienic safety and effectiveness of the recycled fertilizer in order to change the German federal fertilizer regulations to legalize the compost.

HolyShit supports this effort by designing public dry toilets and transferring this innovative treatment process and a composting plant to the metropolitan area, the City of Cologne. This process shall provide data and serve as a blueprint for other municipalities to follow and implement sustainable sanitation solutions.

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with 5 key words.
Sustainable sanitation solution for municipalities

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
HolyShit card game as educational tool for various contexts (schools, administration, politics ...)

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Accessible Public Dry Toilets

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Circular material / ressource flow

Please indicate the main themes of your initiative with key words
Locally closing the global phosphorus and nitrogen cycle

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of sustainability and how these have been/will be met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
The key objective of HolyShit is to educate and raise awareness for the role that we humans play in global natural nutrient cycles. By collecting and composting human excreta individuals can see first-hand how "waste" can be transformed into a valuable resource for growing food and replenishing soil. HolyShit on the one hand is a pedagogical simulation card game which conveys the idea of sustainable sanitation solutions in a playful way. On the other hand it is a start-up in the making which lets citizens experience the process of closing global loops by going to the loo.

The global loops refer to the phosphorus and nitrogen cycle. Phosphorus is a finite resource that faces depletion in the next 50 to 300 years, making recycling necessary. The EU relies solely on imports for its supply, which emphasizes the need for local recycling. Furthermore 2% of the world's fossil energy consumption is used to create nitrogen fertilizer for agriculture. Recycling human feces to produce fertilizer for agriculture reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers and thereby the amount of carbon emissions. Furthermore traditional waste water treatment uses large amounts of water: 1/3 of daily water consumption goes towards flushing toilets. The use of dry toilets helps saving water and protects water bodies from nutrient overload and pollutants which can otherwise leads to algae blooms, the extinction of species and a loss of biodiversity. "Bringing the poop back into the loop" therefore promotes a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of humans and the environment.

HolyShit thereby tackles the following SDGs:

• 2 zero Hunger
• 6 clean water and sanitation
• 11 sustainable cities and communities
• 12 responsible consumption and production
• 13 climate action
• 14 life below water
• 15 life on land

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
Most people are unaware of the value of their excreta. HolyShit offers an opportunity to break the taboo and actually talk about the sensitive topic of using a toilet. The playful design of the card game enables people regardless of their age or status to talk about a topic we usually avoid talking about.

Furthermore the current development process of the public dry toilet is unique as it is happening in a co-creative user-centered design process with both the city administration as well as citizens. Thereby, the citizens ownership for the toilet is thereby strengthened. Additionally, the implementation of public dry toilets transforms the abstract concept of a circular economy into a local, tangible and practical experience. Using a well designed public toilet thereby becomes a pleasant, informative experience.

Please give information about the key objectives of your initiative in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the initiative can be exemplary in this context.
Designing for the public means designing for all members of society. When it comes to public toilets noBODY will be excluded. HolyShit separates urine and feces, not gender, age, religion, ability or sexuality. The public dry toilets will therefore be free of charge and accessible taking the respective norms into account covering aspects such as entry and exit, door width, clearances, floor space, fixtures, contrast and control elements. Furthermore the toilets promote gender equality.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the initiative and civil society have been/will be involved in the initiative and what has been/will be the impact of this involvement on the initiative
Given the limited availability of public flush toilets (13) and mobile chemical toilets (37) in the city of Cologne, which has a population of over one million, the implementation of sustainable public dry toilets and a composting plant will enhance the experience of using public urban and green spaces. HolyShit unleashes citizens from the so called "urinary leash", which limits their mobility and restricts them to a small, familiar area due to the need to find a nearby restroom. People with continence issues, elderly, pregnant women, toddlers, homeless individuals, and those with urgent bathroom needs will benefit from public dry toilets.

Furthermore, involving citizens in the design- and decision-making processes of where to place the public dry toilets, empowers them and makes them feel valued, fostering a sense of community, ownership and responsibility. Engaging citizens in this process helps raise awareness and understanding of the importance of the global nutrient cycles, leading to greater public education and civic engagement. One small poop for wo*man, one giant leap for mankind.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the initiative.
This initiative engages different stakeholders at various levels from local to regional to national.
The local partners of this project are besides citizens, various departments of the city of Cologne including:
- Office for Climate Change Mitigation
- Waste Management
- Office for urban green areas
- Office for public participation
These offices are the ones involved in the co-creation process that is happening at the moment to design the first prototype of a HolyShit public dry toilet and the respective service and composting system.

Another local parter for the composting plant would be :metabolon, a research institute run by the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. It is the ideal place as it offers space, infrastructure and laboratories to compost and evaluate the collected material. A partnership is currently being discussed.

The generated data from a composting plant in Cologne shall contribute to the research project zirkulierBAR, which is a trans-regional project aiming to change the German federal fertilizer regulation in order to bring the poop back into the loop legally. The zirkulierBAR consortium includes partners like TU Berlin, the Center for Responsible Research and Innovation of Fraunhofer IAO, Leibniz-Institut für Gemüse- und Zierpflanzenbau (IGZ) e.V., Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum gemeinnützige GmbH, Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung (HNE) and Eberswalde and Finizio Future Sanitation among others. All these institutions are working towards legal approval for recycling composts from human feces and also urine. HolyShit supports this effort by transferring this innovative technology to the city of Cologne.

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your initiative. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was
The HolyShit initiative and previous Master's thesis "A Toilet Paper - Sustainable Sanitation Solutions for Municipalities" brought together multiple disciplines such as administration, biotechnology, chemistry, simulation game design and communication design. By interviewing stakeholders from these fields, who are part of the zirkulierBAR research project, a comprehensive understanding of the complex topic was gained. The HolyShit card game, as a result, synthesizes all the insights gathered from the broad research including the biochemical processes, nutrient cycles and composting processes, into an educational tool that is easy to comprehend. It leads to improved science communication that can now be used in various settings, such as schools or (in)formal learning contexts as well as co-creative workshops with government representatives to implement sustainable sanitation solutions in municipalities.

Further areas of expertise that are relevant for the next phase of HolyShit are participatory public design, product design, manufacturing, logistics, business modeling, financing and marketing. All these fields now come together in the ongoing design process to kick-start and found the HolyShit GmbH.

Please highlight the innovative character of the initiative, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the initiative
In contrast to other dry toilet providers in Germany HolyShit's goal is to fully recycle the contents from public dry toilets instead of incinerating the valuable material, in order to complete the circular process. By being consulted by the Finizio Future Sanitation, the champion in the field, HolyShit develops a blueprint for transferring this innovative treatment process to other municipalities. Going through this process allows for making mistakes that other municipalities can learn from and avoid.

HolyShit furthermore engages the users in a participatory urban design process for public dry toilets. This is unique within the public toilet field and increases the feeling of ownership, trust, empowerment and awareness for both the citizens and city administrators.

Please describe which elements of your initiative could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and contexts. This may involve, for example, aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings, etc.
The implementation of a public dry toilet concept as well as the establishment of a composting facility can be transferred to other municipalities in Germany and beyond. Ranging from organizational to financial and logistic structures, HolyShit aims to develop a blueprint to be used by other cities and municipalities. The organizational blueprint includes the network of stakeholders that need to be involved as well as a viable financial model for municipalities.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your initiative.
The whole initiative is based on the service design approach. The current process is structured in the following phases:

Research: We gather information on the current situation, needs, and expectations of the city and citizens regarding public dry toilets. This includes conducting interviews, workshops and field research to understand public toilet users behaviors as well as the city's needs.

Ideation: Based on the research we develop ideas and concepts for the public dry toilets. This involves ideation, prototyping and testing in order to develop a user-centered solution for Cologne including all relevant stakeholders in the process (City administration various departments, AWB, :metabolon, citizens).

Design: We are developing and manufacturing a prototype of a public dry toilet and service system, taking into account factors such as accessibility, gender equality, user comfort, and sustainability (design for recycling). The design will also consider factors such as the location, size, and layout and maintenance of the toilets as well as the design of the composting plant. In order to meet the citizens needs, public participation is taken into account by building on existing results of former participatory processes regarding public toilets in Cologne and involving the public in a new process (online and offline).

Testing: The prototype will be tested in a public space in order to receive feedback and make necessary changes.

Evaluation: The following evaluation will analyze the performance of the public dry toilet to identify areas for improvement and iteration. This involves gathering feedback from users, measuring usage and satisfaction over time.

Implementation: After testing and evaluation the concept HolyShit will apply for the city's call for tenders for public dry toilets. By collaborating with manufacturers and the local waste management (AWB), HolyShit will be scaling and making sustainable sanitation accessible in Cologne.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the initiative addresses by providing local solutions
HolyShit addresses the following global challenges summarized in the SDGs:
• 2 zero Hunger
• 6 clean water and sanitation
• 11 sustainable cities and communities
• 12 responsible consumption and production
• 13 climate action
• 14 life below water
• 15 life on land

The local solution of designing and providing public dry toilets and establishing a composting plant enables local nutrient recycling from human feces to close global nutrient cycles. The advantages of this project are:

- Saving water
- Protecting water bodies from nutrients and pollutants and therefore protecting biodiversity
- Soil protection and climate adaptation through organic humus production
- Saving energy and emissions in the production and recycling of nutrients
- Replacing energy-intensive synthetic fertilizers with recycling fertilizer
- Improved recycling through separate collection of materials (pee and poop)
- Cost reduction in sewage sludge treatment for phosphorus-recovery according to the German regulation AbfKlärVab2029

Please detail the scope of progress in the implementation of the initiative. This can include already demonstrated results/outputs related to the chosen Prizes category, and the already achieved benefits from the initiative for direct and indirect beneficiaries. This can also include a development plan of the initiative, with a particular attention to the steps envisaged in the year following the application, and including envisaged results and benefits from the initiative
The progress can be categorized into two parts: Firstly, the development, application and publication of the educational tool and card game HolyShit. It served as a tool to establish a network of partners and organizations to realize a sanitary transformation within the city of Cologne. This work was awarded with the Cologne Design Award in November 2022 by the deputy mayor of Cologne Dr. Ralph Elster (CDU).

The second part refers to the process of implementation of the solution. The office for climate change mitigation is now funding a first public dry toilet prototype. Furthermore the local waste management association (AWB) as well as the municipal project "un:box Cologne" currently examine possibilities for implementing a composting plant. The costs for establishing this plant require significant amounts of investment funding for infrastructure including hygenization, a cleaning station for containers, a turnover machine for composting among other hardware.

Next steps regarding the founding of the HolyShit GmbH are the approval for the registration of trademark rights, business modeling, fundraising, user-research, prototyping, co-creation, public participation, testing of the prototype and evaluation, iteration, further product development and marketing. Once the first prototype is set up in July 2023, a city wide communication campaign shall contribute to spread the knowledge of sustainable sanction solutions in Cologne and educate local communities. A NEB social media campaign would be of great support.

The timeline is to finish the first prototype by July 2023. Establishing the composting plant is planned for the following month. The goal is to found the start-up mid to end of 2023 in order to be ready to apply for public tender for public toilets in 2024. The financial support of the NEB-prize would contribute to the realization of a public dry toilet start-up in Cologne in order realize a sustainable sanitary transformation.

Please provide documents that demonstrate the maturity level of the initiative and commitment to implement the initiative in practice (e.g.: evaluation report, final or mid-term initiative report, certification, publications, building permit, grant agreement, letter of support, partnership agreement, etc.)
Both
PDF
- pdf-1-17457.pdf
Web link
- http://anastasiabondar.de/portfolio/holyshit/
- https://zirkulierbar.de
If relevant, please describe how your initiative contributes to developing new competences, especially in the context of the European competence framework on sustainability.
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Please attach at least 6 high resolution images or visual representations of your initiative to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below.
- MA_Anastasia_Bondar_A_Toilet_Paper_final.pdf
By submitting your application you confirm that you are the copyright owner of the images provided and that they can be used by the European Commission for the purposes of promoting the New European Bauhaus on all platforms (websites, print, social media and other).
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that you are not in in one or more of the exclusion situations foreseen under Article 136 of the Financial Regulation.
Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed initiative has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

By submitting your application, you guarantee that you are the author or have the rights to proceed with the application and to authorise the use of the initiative and that you have obtained any necessary consents, licenses or assignments from third parties and included copyright notices when necessary
Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their initiatives, initiative, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted initiative, initiative is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes