Quality-Assured Nutrient and Humus Recovery from Contents of Dry Toilets on a Unique Pilot Plant
H.I.T. is short for German humus fertiliser recovered from contents of dry toilets. Finizio redesigned the linear, waste-oriented water-borne sanitation system and invented a sustainable way to recover nutrients as phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen for a resource-oriented Circular Economy. The project safely recovers nutrients from consumed food, the contents of dry public and private toilets and produces quality-assured humus fertiliser for horticultural purposes storing carbon in the soil.
National
Germany
– Municipal Waste Management, Kreiswerke Barnim – 100% subsidiary of Municipality (approval of pilot plant)
– Rural District Barnim (approval of pilot plant)
– City of Eberswalde (approval of pilot plant)
– State of Brandenburg, LFU – Environmental Agency (approval of pilot plant)
– State of Brandenburg, LELF – State Office for Rural Development, Agriculture and Land Consolidation (approval of field tests/ quality control of humus fertiliser)
– BMUV – Federal Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection (approval of pilot plant)
– BMEL – Federal Ministry of Nutrition and Agriculture (approval of pilot plant)
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
ERDF : European Regional Development Fund
ERDF 2020 "Gründung innovativ" (EFRE)
Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labour and Energy, Federal State of Brandenburg
28.02.2020-31.03.2022
No
Yes
2022-03-31
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Finizio - Future Sanitation Type of organisation: For-profit company First name of representative: Paula Last name of representative: Horn Gender: Female Nationality: Germany Function: Grant management Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Ostender Höhen 70 Town: Eberswalde Postal code: 16225 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 177 2570627 E-mail:paula.horn@finizio.de Website:http://finizio.de
URL:https://www.facebook.com/finizio.gmbh/ Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #sanitärwende #circulareconomy #drytoilets #sustainability #nährstoffwende #pissandlove #kompostklo #futuresanitation
URL:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkE4ioPBcJtEh2UqazrrG3w Social media handle and associated hashtag(s): #sanitärwende #circulareconomy #drytoilets #sustainability #nährstoffwende #pissandlove #kompostklo #futuresanitation
Finizio seized the opportunities to rethink our linear sanitation system and addresses the paradigm shift towards an alternative resource-oriented sanitary engineering. We performed brave design- and process-engineering to revolutionise the current waste-oriented sanitation system and make it future-proof in regards to water conservation, nutrient and humus recovery, fertiliser production and carbon sequestration. Our project „Setup of a Pilot Plant Safely Recovering Nutrients from Contents of Dry Toilets and Increase of the Efficiency of Mobile Dry Toilets“ has been successfully implemented between February 2020 and March 2022. H.I.T is short for German Humusdünger aus Inhalten von Trockentoiletten.
Finizio designed front-end and back-end sanitation solutions as well as innovative industrial processes recovering nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium locally from human excreta to implement a user-friendly alternative sanitation system. The scalable and replicable pilot plant recovers nutrients from consumed food for safe agricultural and horticultural reuse promoting a regional Circular Economy
Our core business is the lease, sale and servicing of transportable or stationary waterless public and private toilets which are sustainable, accessible, affordable and inclusive due to their innovative design (e.g. Peepot, Unisex Urinal, barrier-free Libre). Between 2020 and 2022, our front-end design-thinking and innovative technical processes for fertiliser production from feces including design, logistics and engineering (hygienization, humification and sifting processes) reached maturity to conduct a continuous safe and economic nutirent recovery at the pilot plant in Eberswalde. The processing has been scientifically accompanied and methods for quality assurance of the recovered fertilisers have been developed and standardized. Our goal is to recover 1 million tons of H.I.T. by 2050 for a local, sustainable fertiliser production and carbon sequestration.
Paradigm shift towards resource-oriented systems in sanitary engineering
Comfortable, User-Friendly Dry Toilets and New Alternative Sanitation Systems
Scalable, Replicable Dry Sanitation System with a Beautiful, User-Friendly Front-End Design, Efficient Logistics and an Economic Back-End Engineering for Local Nutrient Recovery
Recovery of Quality-Assured Recycling Fertiliser from Human Outputs
Our key objectives were i. to design user-friendly mobile dry toilets (Humussphere), ii. to implement an industrial, replicable and scalable process allowing safe nutrient recovery from contents of mobile and stationary dry toilets and iii. to produce a safe, quality-assured humus fertiliser promoting a Circular Economy and re-localisation of the food system. The different types of toilets Finizio designed allow a material flow separation at the front-end which is cruicial for the recovery of fertiliser made from parent materials of human origin. Furthermore Finizio successfully implemented an industrial process consisting of hygienization and humification of contents of dry toilets and thorough sifting of the recovered humus fertiliser as our final product. Per year, one person produces approx. 500 litre urine and 50 litre feces containing 4,5 kilogram nitrogen and approx. 550 phosphorus. From the parent materials, 100 litre multi-nutrient fertiliser from urine concentrate and 150 litre humus fertiliser could be produced annualy equivalent to 105 kilogram stored CO2.
Work package 1 consisted of the setup of our pilot plant for the safe nutrient recovery from contents of dry toilets focused on methodology enhancement and increase of processing capacities. Therefore the mechanisation and industrialisation of the waste management locistics, material discharge from dry matter containers (FSB) and the refinement of dry toilet contents towards high-quality commercial substrates were crucial steps towards the implementation of sustainable sanitation services. With work package 2 Finizio increased the efficiency of existing dry festival toilet services including the procurement and implementation of urine storage systems and suction technology allowing to empty many toilets simultaniously. With the successful design of the „Humussphere“ our project sets an example of an alternative waterless resource-oriented sanitary engineering which is replicable and scalable
Our key objectives in regards to aesthetics and quality of experience are user-friendly services for public spaces, festivals as well as private places combined with an open and interesting knowledge transfer in regards to the value of human excreta. Our innovative mobile, dry festival toilet „Humussphere“ is used by a broad variety of people within the framework of cultural settings such as festivals and other creative events that per se are enhancing positive emotions and create a sense of belonging and meaning amongst the different participants.
Some of our „Finizio Libre“ toilets for public spaces are bautifully designed by local artists and are attracting the gaze of residents as well as visitors initiating discussions about sustainable sanitation systems, nutrient recovery and carbon sequestration. Our communication is easy to understand and makes people curious about sustainable approaches implementing a new, alternative sanitation system. We say thanks for your pee and poo and make people feel good about one of our most mundane activities and leftovers. We break with the taboo of toilet talk and value what is currently declared yucky. In an easy-going manner we do not only trigger a paradigm shift in regards to the hardware but our funny user-instructions addresses a big shift in the current ideolology where human excreta are classified as waste products.
Our „Peepot“ is a design realizing material-flow-separation that doesn‘t require explanation for users and facilitates an easy and correct use of dry toilets.
The quality of experience and user-friendliness is – besides efficient logistics and safe processing – the most crucial element on our journey towards a sustainable sanitation system which is enabling nutrient recovery on a regional scale. Our dispenser for granuled straw is locally produced and an important feature replacing a water flush and assuring the dry matter is properly covered for odourless operation and pleasent use of our dry toilets.
Finizio offers a sustainable and smart design and functional services covering every human‘s basic needs in private and public spaces. Our „Finizio libre“ is barrier-free and designed for public spaces where no water-borne sanitation system can be installed due to the lack of a sewerage system. The model „Libre“ is easily accessible for wheelchairs and offers features as a diaper changing table in a unisex-toilet. It enables communities and municipalities to offer toilets for everyone where otherwise only solutions for male users as urinals would be installed. Our mobile and stationary dry toilets in public spaces are free of charge for the end-user and therefore per se inclusive as a free offer in public spaces.
The model „Humussphere“ offers satisfaction of very basic needs and comfortable services for social gatherings. A wide range of different people are benefitting from the offer at festivals and other cultural events. We want to reach as many people as possible offering a sustainable sanitation system for events and spaces of all kinds.
Our unisex-urinal facilitating material-flow separation showcases practical design for gender diversity and inclusiveness and is applied engineering for all principles: We separate pee and poo, not gender.
We communicate the value of human excreta and our vision of a Circular Economy while people from all backgrounds and age groups are using our toilets enjoying festivals, other events or in public spaces. Our monthly guided tours across the pilot plant in Eberswalde are free of charge for everyone keen to learn more about facts and figures behind the scenes such as the functional design of our toilets, the logistics around collecting the parent materials, the production processes as material-flow separation, hygienization, turning, humifiaction and sifting of H.I.T. as well as the scientifical, political and educational work that needs to happen in order to manage the transition towards sustainable sanitation systems.
Festivals are a big and direct feedback pool. Finizio is servicing its own dry toilets with a team of service forces on the spot so festivals and other events are an ideal test ground with their high user frequency and heaps of direct feedback which we take home to improve our designs and processes. Our communication about new alternative sanitation systems has been well received by a high number of various users: a booklet with the title „From a Linear to a Circular Economy“ about the safe hygienization and further processing of dry toilet contents and production of premium substrates and fertilisers has been compiled to inform a wide range of interested end-users of our alternative sanitation system about the ecological benefits of a circular system. Furthermore a bill-board has been designed and produced that compiles information about sustainable sanitation systems that explains the cornerstones of a Circular Economy in comprehensible and catchy ways, visually and verbally. Festival guests, residents and visitors spending time in public spaces can satisfy their basic needs using our accessible, gender inclusive dry toilets as „Humussphere“ and „Libre“. Users are being informed and guided through behavioural changes which come along using novel dry sanitation systems. People need and ask for public toilets so municipalities have an easy option to meet the needs of residents or visitors where no sewerage is in place. Water-borne island solutions are expensive whereas dry toilets are efficient and solution-oriented. Finizio has answers to the question how contents of dry toilets can be safely collected and processed. The need for non-sewerage-bound sanitation systems such as dry toilets in remote areas trigger the process to design solutions and processes which are suitable and economic in those areas. A research and development challenge in this context is the integration of decentral dry toilets into a circular process exploring the mechanisms of self-composting.
Various public authorities – on the local, federal and national level – have been making concerted efforts to approve the set up of the pilot plant in the City of Eberswalde in 2020 and the project implementation until March 2022. Important stakeholders in regards to the approval of the pilot plant were the following entities: Municipal Waste Management as a 100% subsidiary of the Municipality, Rural District Barnim, City of Eberswalde, State of Brandenburg, LFU – Environmental Agency, State of Brandenburg, State Office for Rural Development, Agriculture and Land Consolidation, Federal Ministry of the Environment and Federal Ministry of Nutrition and Agriculture. NetSan, an assoziation of businesses, scientists and civil society promoting sustainable sanitation systems was a stakeholder facilitating knowledge transfer. The added value of the interactions of the above-named participants was their willingness and ability to further cooperate and design a research project which is now receiving funding by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research between June 2021 and May 2024. The engagement within the framework of a public grant scheme (ERDF) was the opportunity to practically implement an industrial process which under normal circumstances would not have received approval of the relevant authorities due to the technological and methodologically outdated legal framework currently prohibiting the recovery and reuse of human excreta. Thanks to the legal approval of our pilot plant we were able to show scientifically clear results that humus recovery from human excreta can be feasable and safe. The importance of a collaborative stakeholder participation especially with the Federal Ministry of Environment and Comsumer Protection and the Federal Ministry of Nutrition and Agriculture couldn‘t be higher since the fate of our CE business modell lies in the hands of these authorities who hold the decision-making power regarding the legalization of recycling fertilisers.
The disciplines involved are as diverse as the microbiology in a spoon full of healthy soil – and the flawless interaction of them is essential: designers, engineers, microbiologists, builders, servicing and locistics staff, grafic designers and the above mentioned ministries and municipal entities were working together in different ares as design, process engineering, standardisation, legal framework and consumer communication. It begins with the design of a user interface (i.e. a toilet bowl) that meets all criteria of aesthetics and user-friendliness. At the same time, this toilet bowl needs to keep pee and poo in a separated state that allows efficient refinement of their value and elimination of their hazards. In a dry toilet system the logistics between front-end and back-end are one of the key challenges and therefore a central focus of collaborative interactions. Once pee and poo reach the refinement facility the symphony of interdisciplinary collaboration comes to a crescendo. A thorough understanding of the bio-chemical dynamics of nutrients, their physical boundaries, as well as the process-engineering that decides about the economic viability of the valorisation approach are of utmost importance. Finizio strives for maximum fertilizer quality with a scalable and economically viable potential. In the conservative waste disposal industry, the approach is often dominated by economics and engineering compromising the quality of the humus as the final recycling product. Our recycling fertilizers have undergone tests and evaluations by researchers who have been providing their results for adaptive engineering and therefore the enhancement of the design of our toilets, industrial processes and our fertiliser. Finally, to reach and educate citizens through visual and comprehensive compilations of our innovations in the sanitation sector we collaborated with designers and filmmakers creating informative and funny media content as visual designs and short films.
Our festival toilet „Humusspere“ features unprecedented efficiency: We can transport 40 cabins using up the space of a king size bed which makes it a competitive alternative to mobile chemical toilets for events. Further results are the design-optimisation of a locally manufactured „Peepot“ from stainless steel allowing an easy, user-friendly material-flow separation of urine and feces at the front-end and process improvements which enabled Finizio to produce approx. 230t humus fertiliser between 2020 and 2022. In the festival season 2022, 130t of humus fertiliser have been recovered from human excreta at our pilot plant showing the potential of upscaling and replication. Our „Unisex-Urinal“ is a design feature incorporating our values of accessibility and inclusion.Our four permanent employees running the pilot plant share three permanent full time positions that have been created as a result of capacity increase and process optimisation. The up-scaling of this circular-economoy model could create thousands of future-oriented jobs. The prerequisite for its scalability is the legalisation of recycling fertilisers from dry toilet materials by the Federal Ministries of Enviroment and Agriculture as well as the European Comission (via CMC approval in EU fertilizier ordinance). The DIN SPEC 91421 has been released in December 2020. With the draft of a DIN-standard Finizio and partners have been laying the cornerstones for the quality control of recycling products derived from contents of dry toilets applicable in hortuculture in the future. Our informative communication to the public is versatile and can be found on social media. We studied the process of quality-assured humus production on our pilot plant, with the goal to scale it up in order to reach a wide-spread impact of carbon sequestration, energy and ressource efficiancy as well as the regenaration of soil fertility in the near future. This mission is adressed in our follow-up project zirkulierBAR.
With a flush toilet we audaciously abuse fresh water as a means of transport. Our design of waterless sanitation systems and process engineering for quality-assured recycling fertilizer production add value to nutrient-rich materials as feces and urine which are currently classed, treated and mostly lost as waste through mainstream actions in the field of our project. We manage human excreta and treasure them as a resource containing nutrients valuable for arable land and for carbon sequestration conducted on a regional level. Our dry toilets and the replicable pilot plant trigger not less than a paradigm shift towards resource-oriented sanitary systems to protect and restore our waters, soils and atmosphere. We design and implement industrial and scalable processes to make dry toilets competitive with mainstream sanitation systems. The innovation doesn‘t start at the pilot plant processing the feces and additives but with the design thinking of the toilets themselves as the material-flow-separation in our „Peepot“, a custom-made stainless steel diverter, is a first crucial step of a safe nutrient recovery from the dry and liquid parent materials. The whole product and process design differs fundamentally from mainstream activities in the field as we don‘t use water and we reuse nutrients. In current industrial composting, the windrows of organic waste are piled up high to process as much waste as possible on site. But microbiology needs perfect oxygen supply in order to produce perfect humus quality and if a windrow becomes bigger than 3 x 1,5 m, the material „suffocates“ under its own weight. Finizio respects the laws of physics that are often neglected by engineers, let alone waste economists and achieves a stable humification of organic matter. Finizio‘s latest developement projects are the clean chute toilet which will be able to even replace water closets in urban multi-story dwellings and the construction of a humus plant within zirkulierBAR (see PDF 6 plan).
Our CE design approach could hardly be more interdisciplinary. If each step is perfectly designed, the nutrient cycle can be re-initiated without causing harm to the environment and human well-being. The methodologies that have been incrementally developed and successfully applied in the project are 1. material flow separation through design optimisation where feces are collected separately and covered with granuled straw for odour absorption (Peepot, Unisex-Urinal), 2. biological hygienization with the help of low-energy ventialtion systems powered by decentral, renewable energies (HyCo) and 3. aerobic, stable humification (mineral and organic additives, turning of the organic matter), 4. sifting. All steps of the process have been scientifically analysed and further improved towards a functional and economic nutrient recovery on an industrial scale. The material-flow separation is based on the innovative design of different user-friendly models of dry toilets for public and private spaces. The hygienization and humification are effectively conducted on the pilot plant.
The user-communcation has been a crucial part of the project aiming to achieve behavioural changes in order to shift the paradigm of a waste-oriented towards a circular sanitation system. The approach of our external communication was to break the taboo around toilet talk: we established a funny, informative way to talk about pee and poo so people undertsand the importance of these resources and value them as parent materials for firm and liquid fertilisers. The acceptance of dry sanitation systems and the idea to use humus fertiliser from human origin has gained popularity in the mainstream due to our user-friendly design, reliable services and our communication of scientific results showing fertilisers from human origin are safe to use and a way for local communities to recover nutrients for sustainable food systems and avoid carbon dioxide emissions and capture carbon on a regional scale.
All project elements – the sales of diverse products, dry toilet lease and servicing and the safe and value-adding processing of dry toilet contents can be replicated in other contexts and transferred to other places and groups of beneficiaries. The aim of our activities is to design, implement and accredit new value-adding processes within the sanitation sector to integrate the sector into a regional Circular Economy and develop a carbon capture technology based on a bio-economic model. Finizio stands for „fine“ (italian „the End“) and „inizio“ („beginning“). Our design approach covers the entire journey from the finish of the human nutrient cycle (i.e. visiting a toilet) to the point where a quality-assured recycling fertiliser is applied to horticultural and agricultural soils. The developed methodology and processes are technologically mature to produce safe humus fertiliser derived from human excreta as parent material, to reduce carbon emissions from sludge combustion and store carbon through enhanced microbiological activity in our soils. Within the project framework, various technological improvements as user-friendly and economic design-thinking (peepot, unisex-urinal), product diversification for a broad spectrum of different beneficiaries and application contexts (barrier-free model „Libre“ and mobile model „Humussphere“ suitable for big cultural events), effective hygienization, stable and economic humification and sifting led to significantly increased efficiency of dry toilets as a sincere alternative sanitation system which communities and municipalities can adopt.With further product diversification in the near future, a toilet design for multi-story apartment buildings can open up an extended scale in which dry toilets find their way into urban and dense areas where rethinking the current sewerage-based sanitation system makes sense due to challenges as water scarcity or necessity to recover nutrients locally for agricultural and horticultural use.
We deliver tangible solutions to three central crises of our century: Climate change, energy and resource depletion, loss of biodiversity. Climate adaptation and mitigation in a nutshell - save water, enrich soil with carbon and protect our soils from extreme weather events causing erosion and loss of arable land. Our project can save GHG-emissions from synthetic fertiliser production or the combustion of sludge and when applied on arable land, it can capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the soil through enhanced microbiological activity.
Finizio‘s products and processes address the finite nature and increasing scarcity of raw materials for fertiliser production through local nutrient recovery and fertiliser production. The developed and proved products and production engineering can be replicated in any urban-rural area where an alternative sanitation system is needed and reasonable.
The pilot plant proved a scalable and economically viable potential; it safely recovers nutrients and produces quality-assured humus fertiliser proving a high potential for energy saving in the sector of energy-intensive synthetic fertiliser production with the bonus that the parent material for fertiliser production is ubiquitous where people live. Nutrient recovery from dry toilet contents is also a crucial step towards re-localisation of our food system which is currently based on fossil resources and non-renewable energies.
Our project has the potential to sequester carbon locally: once our humus fertiliser is applied to arable land, microbes and micro-organisms can produce even more humus as a form of stable carbon. The developed processes and products as compounds of non-sewerage-bound sanitation solutions can be implemented where appropriate and allow local nutrient recovery and carbon storage wherever desired. The project can be implemented by public or private stakeholders and creates a value-/soil- and nutrient-oriented Circular Economy.
