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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Fertile cities : Nutrient flows from new sanitation to urban agriculture
ClearCountering the porcelain dream: key findings from an evaluation of the global nitrogen cycle, a fundamental characterization of fresh faeces, and a campus composting toilet
This thesis examines global sanitation challenges through a sustainability lens, focusing on nutrient recovery and the need to close elemental cycles to reduce long-term environmental burdens. Proper sanitation infrastructure is foundational to reducing the pollution that reaches waterways, including microplastics.
Recycling – The future urban sink for wastewater and organic waste
Researchers analyzed how recycling urban wastewater and organic waste as agricultural fertilizer could become a sustainable solution for feeding a growing global population, finding that keeping nutrient-rich sewage separate from chemically contaminated greywater is essential to making this work. The analysis suggests that cities could replace environmentally damaging phosphorus and potassium mining with urban waste recycling if infrastructure is redesigned accordingly.
Socio-environmental consideration of phosphorus flows in the urban sanitation chain of contrasting cities
Researchers compared how five cities — Accra, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Baltimore, and London — manage phosphorus in human waste, finding wide variation in how much gets recycled back to farmland rather than lost. The study highlights that access to capital and existing infrastructure largely determine a city's ability to close the nutrient loop, with rapidly urbanizing cities having the greatest opportunity to adopt more sustainable sanitation systems.
Potential Nutrient Conversion Using Nature-Based Solutions in Cities and Utilization Concepts to Create Circular Urban Food Systems
This review examines how nature-based solutions in cities—like constructed wetlands and green infrastructure—can help recover nutrients from wastewater for reuse in agriculture. These systems can also help filter out microplastics and other contaminants before they reach waterways.
Organomineral fertilizer from sewage sludge: nutrient recycling and environmental safety for tropical agriculture
Not relevant to microplastics — this study evaluates an organomineral fertiliser derived from sewage sludge for tropical agriculture, focusing on nutrient recycling and heavy metal safety.
Sanitary Systems: Challenges for Innovation
This paper reviews challenges for innovation in sanitation systems, including how to recover resources from waste while adapting to climate change and resource scarcity. Sanitation systems are also a major pathway for microplastic pollution to reach waterways through wastewater treatment plant effluent.
Perception and impact of micropollutants in urine-based liquid fertilizer on crop production: A comprehensive review of Eco-sanitation practices
This review explores the promise and risks of using human urine as a crop fertilizer, noting it contains valuable nitrogen and phosphorus but also pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and microplastics that can contaminate soil and enter food crops. The presence of microplastics in urine-derived fertilizer is identified as a safety concern that adds to the already complex risk calculus of eco-sanitation practices. The paper underscores how microplastics have permeated even novel, low-tech agricultural inputs, complicating otherwise sustainable approaches.
Treated wastewater irrigation: unlocking sustainability in agriculture and food security—a comprehensive review
This comprehensive review explores treated wastewater as an alternative irrigation source for agriculture in water-scarce regions. While treated wastewater can improve soil fertility and crop growth, the review notes concerns about contaminants including microplastics that can accumulate in soil and potentially enter the food chain, emphasizing the need for effective treatment technologies.
Sewage sludge as a sustainable fertilizer: Promise, pitfalls, and future directions
This review examines both the promise and pitfalls of using sewage sludge as a fertilizer, finding that while it reduces agrochemical costs and provides nutrients for crops, it also introduces microplastics, pathogens, and heavy metals into agricultural soils with implications for food safety and public health.
Approaching the environmental problem of microplastics: Importance of WWTP treatments
This review examines the role of wastewater treatment plants as sources and sinks of microplastics, noting that while treatment removes significant quantities, remaining particles concentrate in sewage sludge which is then applied to agricultural land as fertilizer. The authors survey available technologies for improving microplastic removal and call for better policy to address this gap.
From agricultural use of sewage sludge to nutrient extraction: A soil science outlook
Researchers reviewed Sweden's decades-long program of applying sewage sludge to farmland, finding that toxic metal concentrations dropped by up to 90% since the 1970s due to environmental regulations. However, they argue that simply spreading urban waste on fields is impractical for large cities due to high water content and transport costs, and suggest extracting nutrients from waste instead as a more scalable solution.
Nitrogen Recovery With Source Separation of Human Urine—Preliminary Results of Its Fertiliser Potential and Use in Agriculture
A preliminary study evaluated the fertilizer value of urine separated at source, finding that it contains significant nitrogen and phosphorus levels suitable for agricultural use. While not directly about microplastics, source-separated urine as a nutrient recovery strategy could reduce reliance on sewage sludge — a major pathway for microplastics entering agricultural soils.
Circular Economy in Wastewater Management—The Potential of Source-Separating Sanitation in Rural and Peri-Urban Areas of Northern Finland and Sweden
Researchers evaluated regional-scale source-separation sanitation scenarios in sparsely populated northern Finland and Sweden, finding that black water separation and urine diversion can substantially improve nutrient recovery compared to conventional wastewater treatment, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas.
Recycling fertilizers from human excreta exhibit high nitrogen fertilizer value and result in low uptake of pharmaceutical compounds
Researchers found that nitrified urine fertilizers derived from human excreta produced marketable white cabbage yields comparable to commercial organic fertilizer across three soil types, and that pharmaceutical uptake by plants from fecal compost was low, supporting human excreta recycling as a viable circular economy approach.
Are Agricultural Soils Dumps for Microplastics of Urban Origin?
Researchers investigated whether agricultural soils serve as dumping grounds for urban-origin microplastics, finding evidence that sewage sludge application and atmospheric deposition deliver city-sourced plastics to farmland.
Opportunities and challenges organo-mineral fertiliser can play in enabling food security
This review examines organo-mineral fertilizers, which combine organic waste materials like manure and food scraps with reduced amounts of conventional mineral fertilizers, as a strategy for more sustainable farming. While not about microplastics specifically, the study is relevant because sewage biosolids used in organic fertilizer blends can contain microplastics that then enter agricultural soil. The review discusses policy interventions needed to balance food security with environmental protection.
Neighborhood-Scale Urban Water Reclamation with Integrated Resource Recovery for Establishing Nexus City in Munich, Germany: Pipe Dream or Reality?
This study assessed the feasibility of neighborhood-scale water reclamation with integrated resource recovery — including energy and nutrients — in Munich, Germany. The analysis found that decentralized systems can recover more resources than centralized treatment plants and may be more resilient to future demands. Decentralized approaches also offer opportunities to reduce microplastic discharges through tailored treatment.
Causal Relations of Upscaled Urban Aquaponics and the Food-Water-Energy Nexus—A Berlin Case Study
Researchers modeled the consequences of upscaling urban aquaponics in Berlin, finding that while aquaponics can improve the food-water-energy nexus in a circular city context, significant tradeoffs and resource dependencies must be carefully managed.
FROM THE SANITARY CITY TO THE CIRCULAR CITY? Technopolitics of Wastewater Restructuring in Los Angeles, California
This article traces the flow of wastewater in Los Angeles, exploring political and social struggles over plans to recycle and reuse urban wastewater. It examines how ambitious infrastructure visions interact with community concerns and governance challenges in a major metropolitan area.
Accelerating Plastic Pollution Mitigation through Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Development
This paper reviewed how sustainable urban infrastructure — including improved waste management, green stormwater systems, and circular economy design — can accelerate mitigation of plastic pollution in cities. It proposed urban design principles to reduce plastic flows into aquatic environments.
A review of nature-based solutions for resource recovery in cities
This review examines nature-based solutions for resource recovery in cities, focusing on technologies that use microorganisms and ecological processes to shift urban systems from linear resource sinks toward more circular and sustainable models.
Tracing and Quantifying Microplastics in Bristol’s Urban Water System
Researchers built a mass balance model of microplastic flows through Bristol's entire urban water system and found that households are the primary source feeding the system, while wastewater treatment plants intercept about 99.8% of microplastics before they reach rivers. However, the concentrated microplastics captured in sewage sludge re-enter the environment if sludge is spread on agricultural land as fertilizer. The model provides a template applicable to other cities for identifying where interventions would have the greatest impact on reducing environmental microplastic loads.
Sustainable wastewater reuse for agriculture
Researchers reviewed the potential of treating and reusing wastewater for agricultural irrigation, noting that while less than 20% of the world's wastewater is currently treated, advanced systems could provide a stable, energy-generating water supply for farming. The main hurdle is that current treatment technologies cannot fully remove all emerging chemical contaminants, including microplastics, which may affect crops and human health.
Do contaminants compromise the use of recycled nutrients in organic agriculture? A review and synthesis of current knowledge on contaminant concentrations, fate in the environment and risk assessment
This review examines whether recycled nutrients from waste streams, such as sewage sludge and compost, introduce harmful contaminants including microplastics into organic farmland. While levels of heavy metals and many pollutants have decreased in European waste streams, microplastic contamination in agricultural soil remains widespread and poorly understood. The review highlights that spreading waste-derived fertilizers on farmland is a significant pathway for microplastics to enter the food production system.