Sustainable sanitation project wins Green Globe Award

A project exploring the viability of capturing and re-using urine from urban toilets as an agricultural fertiliser has won UTS’s Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) its second major award within a week.

The sustainable sanitation project led by ISF researchers Professor Cynthia Mitchell, Dr Kumi Abeysuriya and Dena Fam has won the Environmental Leadership and Innovation Award at the NSW Government’s Green Globe Awards announced on Monday.

The Green Globe follows hard on the heels of the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research awarded last week to Dr Dana Cordell and ISF Director Professor Stuart White for research on managing global phosphorus supplies - a closely related area.

The project was the first trial of a urine diversion (UD) system in an Australian institutional setting - involving staff, students and visitors to UTS - and examined the barriers and opportunities for urine capture and re-use.

The pilot project took a transdisciplinary approach to the research, through four parallel strands of collaborative inquiry (technology, regulatory, visual communication and stakeholder engagement) plus an overarching integration strand.

Using lessons learned from the pilot, ISF worked with a number of key stakeholders including Lend Lease, Sydney Water, Caroma Dorf (now GWA Bathrooms & Kitchens) and Arup to develop Australian design guidelines for UD systems in multistorey buildings.

Lend Lease’s design team is currently collaborating with ISF, Sydney Water and GWA Bathrooms & Kitchens to design UD systems for its Barangaroo development and the Broadway Building project at UTS. The result will be an approved sanitary waste system that complies with Australian Standard 3500 and the new Building Code of Australia.

“Being right on the cutting edge of sustainable innovation requires not only enormous foresight but also a great deal of gumption,” Professor Mitchell said.

“Our partners in this urine diversion work have displayed both in spades, and this award is a wonderful way of recognising their commitment, legitimising their investment, celebrating our collective achievements and garnering support for tackling remaining blockages (if you’ll pardon the pun).

“The decision to install urine diversion plumbing in the Broadway Building is a bold move, and underlines UTS’s commitment to sustainability.”

The Green Globe Award citation said comprehensive data from the UD trial is now being shared with others including Yarra Valley Water and the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance.

Judges commented that, “The project is a leading example of industry collaboration and breakthrough research that will help transform industry thinking on sustainable sanitation.”